# protecting neutral leg



## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

it seems as if there is nothing to install in the electric panel.. to protect the neutral from getting _juiced_ outside... accidental. which of course will ruin hardwired or plugged in devices, [even if they aren't turned on].

apparently the neutral has to be continues without being fused.


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## JohnthePilot (Mar 30, 2006)

A connection to neutral would be the same as a connection to earth and should blow the fuse of the circuit supplying the current.


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

yep
even though the ground [earth] is united with the copper water service, plus 2 eight foot ground rods, to the circuit breaker box, when the neutral wire gets wacked from either the 2 120volt wires on the pole.......:FIREdevil:4-zap::4-nopity:


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## sandman55 (May 28, 2005)

When I was an apprentice my neighbour came over and asked why was he getting a substantial electric shock when he was standing under the shower and when he turned on the electric oven the TV picture shrunk in size.
I found he had no neutral from the mains so his only connection was earth to the water mains (at that time we used the water mains now we use a stake and bond the water mains) only a plumber had put in a water softener and had wrongly connected the earth to the house side of the water softener which meant the path was via water from one side of the plastic water softener to the other so it also went from the shower rose through his body to the metal drain, and when he turned on a heavy load like the oven the voltage dropped substantially and affected his TV and refrigerator.


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## grumpygit (Oct 28, 2006)

speedster123 said:


> yep
> even though the ground [earth] is united with the copper water service, plus 2 eight foot ground rods, to the circuit breaker box, when the neutral wire gets wacked from either the 2 120volt wires on the pole.......:FIREdevil:4-zap::4-nopity:



The way i see it is, if the wires were to touch outside the house it would just cause a short back to the electrical substation which would stop the supply of power to the house.


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## speedster123 (Oct 18, 2006)

that didnt happen on my block
lipa is paying out for shorted equipment


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

Most single phase installations are no more than one phase of a 3 phase supply. 

When the 3 phases are feeding approximately balanced loads (household consumptions) the resulting currents through the 3 phases results in a virtual Zero current neutral return.
If one of the phases loses the neutral .. then the loads become totally imbalanced and can even cause the effective voltage through those remaining phases to increase substantially, as we found out several months ago when our 3 phase install lost its neutral and we blew half the PC equipment, air conditioners, Light bulbs etc ... some went with apop .. others went with smoke and massively domed mains smoothing capacitors (rated at 450Vdc)


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