In my August column, I covered the basics of how each cable has a resistive, inductive and capacitive component. This is generally true about every load and generator. We are only discussing conducted phenomena, which means...
This week, two questions posed to me ended with the same explanation. The first person asked why their newly installed storm door would close and latch just fine when they went into their house, but failed to latch when they...
The owner of a single-family Cape-Cod-style home complained of lights blinking off and on for six months. It occurred mainly at night, seemingly in half the house. Stormy nights might have made it worse. It was annoying...
My February column was about looking for the obvious when troubleshooting power quality problems. At one of this week’s jobs, I should have followed my own advice. This job was one of those mentioned in that article: it began...
Early 2022 has brought unusual electrical troubleshooting calls similar to what ERs and jails experience before or during full moons. Though scientifically unsubstantiated, many people working in such environments will tell...
Annual electric generation in 2020 was approximately 4,200 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) and has been relatively flat over the past decade. Renewable sources reached 800 billion kWh in 2020, which is about the same amount as...
One possible explanation to last month’s mystery as to why the lights in one bedroom became brighter when the other room’s lights got dimmer was a voltage unbalance. (“Unbalance” is the commonly used term, although most...
In previous articles, I have covered typical troubleshooting case studies, including sags caused by large- horsepower motors and heating elements, oscillatory transients caused by power-factor capacitor switching, destruction...
There were cabinet installers and electricians working at the site of a major kitchen renovation project. The cabinet crew had their power miter saw set up on the deck outside the family room adjacent to the kitchen. Every...
When trying to determine the effects of renewable energy sources on the quality of the electrical supply, one must first carefully examine the statistics and what goes into them. Lately, the term “renewable” has been focused...
An overwhelmed person asked me for help solving a problem she was assigned but had no background in. She was tasked with reducing the electric bills for a church/meeting building and two parsonage dwellings (residences A and...
Another excessive heat wave and a severe thunderstorm warning had just been issued, and as I pulled in the driveway to go inside and write this month’s article, a neighbor came running over to tell me that their lights were...
