I live in a 20 year old trailer & I have an electrical problem. I went to plug in a surage protecter & it smoked. I checked the plug in with one of those testers that have different light configurations for different problems & it told me that I had an open neutral. I checked the other plugs & some were correct & the others had the same problem. Also sometimes if you touch two appliances at the same time you can get a small schock. What is the fix?
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Replies
you have AL wiring???
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
No it is romex like you find in a regular construction
copper wire then???
you have acess to the under si9de of yur mobile???
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Yes it is copper 3 wire hot, neutral & ground. It looks like all of it is 12 guage or bigger. There is full acess under the trailer. Also an aluminmu ground wire with 2 copper wires comes from the electric companys meter base & goes to my braker box.
if you have a double wide check the couplings in the wiring circuts at the marriage line... usally they are at one end of the trailer.. they may be at both ends and near the panel box...
they look like simple plug together connectors...
check the wiring connections (loose screws) inside the main panel...
replace the AL ground wire with a #6 copper wire if you safely can...
now go and check every device you have... skip none..
if the recepticals are back wired.. (wires plugged into the back of the recepticals) side wire them.. (put the wire under the side terminal screws)....
here's yur chance to put in all new recepticals and switches since they're cheap enough...
do one at a time with the power off...
make diagrams of where the wires route.. don't trust yur memory...
put it back together as ya found it...
if there are made up pigtails inside of the device boxes make sure they mechanically sound...
suspect every white wire ya come across as being the problem...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Also an aluminmu ground wire with 2 copper wires comes from the electric companys meter base & goes to my braker box."
Sounds to me like he's missing his neutral right here.
Bonded at the meter pan, but open or missing to the sub panel (trailer main)
Whatcha think?
yup..
if that's his SE he's refering to...
he may be thinking it's ground when it's really the nutral carrier...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
You need a voltmeter. A cheap $5 unit from Radio Shack will do the trick. Measure the voltage between the two flat slots in your electrical outlets. Should be 110-130V, and within 5 volts everywhere. If not, and instead you get like 150V some places and 90V others, you have an open neutral in your service entrance wiring.
If that's the case, open up the box as close to the service entrance as you can get and measure between hot and neutral on both legs. If you see the same discrepancy there then likely problem is with your supplier.
Other than this sort of open neutral at the service entrance I can't think of another failure that would smoke a surge protector. Certainly bad connections can exist in other areas, though.
What's the age of this trailer? [Ah, 20 years old. Shouldn't be AL wiring.] Has any wiring work been done on it since it left the factory?
Edited 11/21/2007 10:15 am by DanH