# Getting 150 volts at my outlets, need help



## jbfan

Is this reading in the whole house?

Check the batteries in the meter.


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## mpoulton

If it's every receptacle in the house and your lights are operating normally, then there's something wrong with your meter. Incandescent lamps will burn out in minutes at that voltage. If it's only some receptacles and not others, and the lights are crazy bright and burn out fast, then you probably have a loose neutral - turn everything off until you fix the problem!


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## curiousB

Faulty volt meter


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## puddin

Assuming you find that your meter is fine; If you have this reading on all outlets throughout the entire house then call an electrician immediately, it is unsafe to use any 120V appliances at that voltage and can cause premature failure of electronic components. If you find that some outlets read 150V while others read only 90V then go to your load center (breaker box) to find out which circuit is overloaded and re-balance the electrical load so that a similar amount of current flows through each bus of the load center.


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## joed

snofox4 said:


> If you find that some outlets read 150V while others read only 90V then go to your load center (breaker box) to find out which circuit is overloaded and re-balance the electrical load so that a similar amount of current flows through each bus of the load center.


If you find this then you have a loose or open neutral. Balancing the load will even it out until someone turns on or off something. Get the neutral fixed ASAP. You will burn out your electronics.


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## AllanJ

snofox4 said:


> If you find that some outlets read 150V while others read only 90V then go to your load center (breaker box) to find out which circuit is overloaded and re-balance the electrical load so that a similar amount of current flows through each bus of the load center.


So much easier said than done so as to not be worth trying.

Also, as said before, if someone turns something else on or off then things will re-unbalance.

Instead unplug all electronics or actually it is better to turn everything off until it is fixed. You need to find out where the neutral is broken quickly (unless you can put up with the power off for a longer time). Get help if you are confused.

It is definitely a neutral broken if lights elsewhere or anywhere brighten noticeably when you turn on a hair dryer.


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## k_buz

snofox4 said:


> Assuming you find that your meter is fine; If you have this reading on all outlets throughout the entire house then call an electrician immediately, it is unsafe to use any 120V appliances at that voltage and can cause premature failure of electronic components. If you find that some outlets read 150V while others read only 90V then go to your load center (breaker box) to find out which circuit is overloaded and re-balance the electrical load so that a similar amount of current flows through each bus of the load center.


Completely incorrect. No idea where you came up with this. Voltage doesn't change based on current.


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## joed

It does if you have an open neutral.


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## k_buz

The post implies that balancing the load will fix the problem. It may correct the voltage reading, by the time you spend to balance the load, your electronics are already fried...and you still have a loose neutral.


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## gregzoll

snofox4 said:


> Assuming you find that your meter is fine; If you have this reading on all outlets throughout the entire house then call an electrician immediately, it is unsafe to use any 120V appliances at that voltage and can cause premature failure of electronic components. If you find that some outlets read 150V while others read only 90V then go to your load center (breaker box) to find out which circuit is overloaded and re-balance the electrical load so that a similar amount of current flows through each bus of the load center.


I must have missed this part in Basic Electricity in the Navy, or was out sick that day. But, can you please explain further how the last part comes into play in Ohm's Law?


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## gregzoll

joed said:


> It does if you have an open neutral.


Does not change Ohm's Law. Just means that it finds the path of least resistance, and now instead of a split phase being truly a split phase, you now have a 240 v Single phase, with no Neutral. Still does not change the rules of the game.


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## zappa

gregzoll said:


> Does not change Ohm's Law.
> Who said anything about changing Ohm's law?
> 
> Just means that *it* finds the path of least resistance,
> What is "it"....a scary clown?
> 
> and now instead of a split phase being truly a split phase, you now have a 240 v Single phase, with no Neutral. Still does not change the rules of the game.
> True, but you wouldn't have made this post if you understood how this applies. I think you may have missed more than one day of your Navy electrical training.


.....


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## Missouri Bound

snofox4 said:


> Assuming you find that your meter is fine; If you have this reading on all outlets throughout the entire house then call an electrician immediately, it is unsafe to use any 120V appliances at that voltage and can cause premature failure of electronic components. If you find that some outlets read 150V while others read only 90V then go to your load center (breaker box) to find out which circuit is overloaded and re-balance the electrical load so that a similar amount of current flows through each bus of the load center.


:lol::lol::lol::laughing::laughing::laughing::wallbash:


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## joed

Let me try and explain what happens with an open neutral.
First some loads are in parallel, the one one the same leg. Some loads are in series, the one on opposite legs.

I will keep it simple not practical.
If you have two 10 ohm loads on opposite legs the voltage will be 120 on each. Current is not important. Voltage divides evenly across the two loads.
If you have those same two loads on the same leg then voltage will be 240 volts on each. However unless you have a load on the other leg to create a path to complete the circuit no current will flow since the neutral is open. Now add a 10 ohm load to the other leg. That make 10 ohms in series with 5 ohms and the voltage splits 80/160. Every time you turn on or off a load on one side the voltage is going to adjust.

It is also not straight ohms law since this is AC. Also when the voltage drops motors will draw more current and adjust the voltage even more.


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## zappa

snofox4 said:


> Assuming you find that your meter is fine; If you have this reading on all outlets throughout the entire house then call an electrician immediately, it is unsafe to use any 120V appliances at that voltage and can cause premature failure of electronic components. If you find that some outlets read 150V while others read only 90V then go to your load center (breaker box) to find out which circuit is overloaded and re-balance the electrical load so that a similar amount of current flows through each bus of the load center.





Missouri Bound said:


> :lol::lol::lol::laughing::laughing::laughing::wallbash:


Accurate information but an impractical solution.


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## Missouri Bound

zappa said:


> Accurate information but an impractical solution.


 
What is suggested is a good idea....but it's not going to change the voltage around, just affect the load balance. Moving loads around won't magically change the 150v (if actually present) to 120v, nor the 90v.:no:


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## zappa

Missouri Bound said:


> What is suggested is a good idea....but it's not going to change the voltage around, just affect the load balance. Moving loads around won't magically change the 150v (if actually present) to 120v, nor the 90v.:no:


It certainly will move the voltages around. Without a neutral it's a balancing act with series and series parallel loads.

Try to wrap your head around *joed's* post. It's very good. If you could always keep the loads perfectly balanced there would be no need for a neutral (other than a connection point) or center tapped transformer.


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## Missouri Bound

The original poster never came back. This thread has turned into a story with several levels. If the problem is a neutral, then I apologize for my comment. But this hasn't been verified and I'm thinking the OP is either sitting back watching us argue or is too embarassed to come back. Unless the OP comes back with more details or verification, all the speculation here is probably confusing him.......if he indeed is watching and reading. And at this point I think that operator error regarding the meter just may be the real isue. If everything is working as it should it's unlikely that 150v is present. It would certainly be noticed in lighting and various household appliances and equipment.....well at least I think most of us would notice it.


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## zappa

Missouri Bound said:


> The original poster never came back. This thread has turned into a story with several levels.


I agree and mentioned this in my original post but deleted it out because of harsh wording.


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## puddin

Lol; my bad. I just agreed with the open neutral idea without saying anything, so I offered a temporary solution. Didn't know I was going to be judged so quickly here, wowza.

Anyway, yeah, if you can equalize the loads evenly between the breakers on each main hot leg in the load center it would even the voltage between them and fix the issue until the open neutral can be resolved.. But this is after checking for a broken/misused meter and seeing if there is a voltage difference in the first place.


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## k_buz

How do you "balance the loads" of 1 120V circuit?

You can't...you just can't. It would HAVE to be a 120/240 V circuit in order for balancing the loads. Even if the OP knew it was a MWBC, how would he go about balancing the loads? Are all the loads spliced in the main panel? Would you fish new feeds up to all the recepts and lights. How would the OP even know what the loads were?

What Snofox suggested it is impossible to achieve unless you just unplug everything and turn all the lights off. Even then, there might be something you don't know is on that circuit or turns on periodically.

If the OP was truly reading 150 V on 120V circuit, I would suggest he unplugs EVERY electronic item in the house and call an electrician immediately. Loose/broken neutrals can be deadly to electronics and cause a real threat to humans as well.


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## gregzoll

k_buz said:


> How do you "balance the loads" of 1 120V circuit?


Place them on a Teeter Totter, and make sure they are both the same weight.


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## puddin

k_buz said:


> How do you "balance the loads" of 1 120V circuit?
> 
> You can't...you just can't. It would HAVE to be a 120/240 V circuit in order for balancing the loads. Even if the OP knew it was a MWBC, how would he go about balancing the loads? Are all the loads spliced in the main panel? Would you fish new feeds up to all the recepts and lights. How would the OP even know what the loads were?
> 
> What Snofox suggested it is impossible to achieve unless you just unplug everything and turn all the lights off. Even then, there might be something you don't know is on that circuit or turns on periodically.
> 
> If the OP was truly reading 150 V on 120V circuit, I would suggest he unplugs EVERY electronic item in the house and call an electrician immediately. Loose/broken neutrals can be deadly to electronics and cause a real threat to humans as well.





k_buz said:


> How do you "balance the loads" of 1 120V circuit?


Pretty sure most homes have more than one circuit.

It's so impossible that I've done it.  They don't need to be exactly perfect to function, most things can work on 115/125V or something like that. Keep the sensitive equipment away and don't use the vacuum; I was able to run my 250w refrigerator on one circuit, and two 60w lights plus a little 125w tube television on two other circuits on the opposite side of the load center. I had to do this when the neutral was eaten/ruined by critters on the lines, and it sure beat not having electricity for 18 hours until it could be fixed. Yes, you have to be aware of whats plugged in.. No, it's not hard when you're a person like me who tries to keep track of what electronic consumption ratings their stuff has. 

I mean, he apparently has a multi-meter so I don't see the issue with seeing the power load/voltage at the breakers/outlets, maybe I'm just more ambitious than most, lol, but I guess I'm the only one who keeps track of the amount and location of breakers in their load center.


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## k_buz

You seriously have no idea what you are talking about in this instance.


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## puddin

k_buz said:


> You seriously have no idea what you are talking about in this instance.


In what way? Here's how I see the issue:

If the meter he's using turns out to be fine, and there does turn out to be a difference in voltages between the legs in his load center then my idea works. If just that circuit has the issue cease use of that particular circuit, but if the whole load center has an issue then balancing the load between the legs will work fine temporarily.


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## k_buz

No, No, No

You are just throwing stuff out there and have no idea what you are telling people to do. If you have different voltages thru out the house you have a serious problem and NEED to call an electrician. A homeowner balancing the loads in the main breaker panel will do nothing but make the job ALOT more expensive.


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## k_buz

Balancing the loads might work if the breaker is tripping due to overloading of the circuit. But we are not talking about that situation in this thread. That is a ENTIRELY different problem.


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## puddin

k_buz said:


> Balancing the loads might work if the breaker is tripping due to overloading of the circuit. But we are not talking about that situation in this thread. That is a ENTIRELY different problem.


Turning electronics on and off wasn't very hard for me to do in order to keep a few lights on and my food cold, I agree that an electrician would be required to repair the open neutral, but this does work for as long as you can maintain similar loads on each main breaker. Don't you know load centers are split into two phases? There's a 240v difference between the two main legs coming from the transformer, and 120V difference between either of those legs and neutral at any given point.. As long as those legs are kept reasonably balanced when there's no neutral to return the unbalanced voltage then lights and other simple electronics will work fine. It's not dangerous as long as the current in the wire stays similar. I don't understand what you don't understand. I'm not suggesting this as a way to power everything in the place, just a few things here and there.. You can turn off circuits you don't need and only have to balance the load between two or three circuits.


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## k_buz

I will try to make this as clear as possible.

There is NO way to "balance loads" if there is an open neutral on a 2 wire 120V circuit.

I've been an electrician for 14 years, so I know a little about what I'm saying.


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## puddin

k_buz said:


> I will try to make this as clear as possible.
> 
> There is NO way to "balance loads" if there is an open neutral on a 2 wire 120V circuit.
> 
> I've been an electrician for 14 years, so I know a little about what I'm saying.


I'm. Talking. About. Multiple. Circuits. On. Separate. Phases. With. No. Neutral.

I can't make it any more clear, so I'm just going to leave it there.


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## k_buz

No, what you are advising people to do is impractical and dangerous. There are so many unknowns in the OP that to tell him to go to the breaker panel is irresponsible on your part. Even if you could balance the loads enough are balanced enough to keep the lights on (light bulbs are less sensitive than electronics) if you balance the loads (as per your advice) turn on the switch for switched outlets, you have changed the loads and smoked the electronics of anything plugged into those outlets and created a serious risk of fire.

The only SAFE way to handle this problem is to turn off the breakers of the circuits with the incorrect voltage and call someone who knows what they are doing.


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## zappa

Maybe you guys should start a new thread on this subject?

Snofox4…..your theory is accurate but unless there is some sort of huge emergency to keep the power on your remedy is ridiculous and not safe.

k-buz…..you are commenting on something that you are not familiar with and digging a pretty deep hole for yourself. If you would like I could try to draw something up using mechanical springs instead of loads (resistors) but it might take some time using the paint program. Once you see this I think it will become clear what snowfox and others are trying to say.


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## puddin

If there's an open load-center neutral then all circuits will be affected. Also, looking at where breakers are positioned in the load center has never led to danger. You obviously are misunderstanding what I'm trying to say.

Let's say (for demonstration purposes) there's two circuits in this breaker panel, he tests circuit 1 to have a unloaded voltage of 150V, he then moves to a different outlet on loaded circuit 2 and finds it has 90V. The neutral is open. He may then infer to the load center to see which phase the breakers for circuit 1 and circuit 2 are on, he finds that circuit 1 is on the opposite phase as circuit 2. He then returns to the outlet on circuit 2 and removes the load from the circuit then re-tests the voltage and finds it to be 120V on both circuit 1 and circuit 2; because there are no loads on either circuit the power distribution between the two circuits will be equalized as they are currently balanced. So he unplugs everything from those circuits and only uses lights/simple electronics until the neutral can be fixed. 

It's not that dangerous really as long as the loads are kept similar between the phases (which is easy when you turn off most of the breakers) and the current is kept low. But fine, I guess someone that's not me should just kill the mains and deal with it; but I have used lights and a crappy TV even when the neutral was open.


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## jbfan

Since the op must have burnt up his computor on a 150 receptacle, we can argue theroy all day and not accomplish anything.

Time for this to die!


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## k_buz

zappa said:


> Maybe you guys should start a new thread on this subject?
> 
> Snofox4…..your theory is accurate but unless there is some sort of huge emergency to keep the power on your remedy is ridiculous and not safe.
> 
> k-buz…..you are commenting on something that you are not familiar with and digging a pretty deep hole for yourself. If you would like I could try to draw something up using mechanical springs instead of loads (resistors) but it might take some time using the paint program. Once you see this I think it will become clear what snowfox and others are trying to say.


Apparently I need you to draw that up. I don't see or understand how one two wire branch circuit with an open neutral could be affected by moving loads from other circuits around. I can however see how moving loads around on a MWBC could affect that.


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## Jim Port

With an open neutral one circuit will affect the voltage on the other leg of the panel based on the load imposed.

Try sliding the center point up and down between the two endpoints of the tranny to see how this would work.


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## zappa

ok, I will draw something but it will be my last post here unless a new thread is started.


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## zappa

Ok, the important thing to remember is the neutral line can move up and down in this drawing because it is disconnected from the center tap of the transformer. It’s a simple voltage divider and the neutral line moving up and down equates to different voltages being measured between the hots and neutral. The blue things are 120 volt loads or springs if you will. If you only had the 2 far right springs on the very end hooked up and they are equal loads (tension) then the neutral would stay where it is drawn and you would measure 120 volts from each hot to the neutral. If you added more loads (springs) like the other blue things shown they would pull the neutral line up and you would measure say 90 volts from neutral to the top leg and 150 volts from neutral to the bottom leg but the sum of both would always add up to 240 volts (voltage divider). If you added more loads on the bottom to equal the top loads it would drag the neutral back to the center and you would have normal voltages again.

Added note: the open neutral in this example would be somewhere between the transformer and main panel.


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## ddawg16

Most of you get it....some have no clue.....

In a properly designed system (120/240 residential system), you should be able to run full current on one side with little to no voltage change. 

In other words....you have 2 120Vac legs coming in with one neutral. If your loading up only one side, all the current goes through the one leg and returns to the transformer via the neutral.

As you start to run loads on the other leg, the current starts to flow through the other leg and less current flows through the neutral.

If you had exactly the same load on both legs, there would be 0 current flow through the neutral. A feat that would be difficult even with some sophisticated balancing electronics...much less trying to add or subtract loads.

If you lose the neutral connection....you still have the same voltage between the main legs (240), but the reference of the neutral is now all over the place due to no current flow...not a good thing.

I would like to hear form the OP what kind of meter he is using. 150 is not out of the question....depending on how the house is wired. Considering that most electronics now days are set up for 120/240 vac input (switching supplies), 150vac is not going to hurt it...bulbs? Yes....I would expect those to be poping....unless they are on the other ckt....

What would be real obvious is the lights getting bright or dim anytime something is turned on or off.


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## AllanJ

Here is a test.

Turn off your main breaker.

If there is a utility pole on your side of the street near your house and that pole has a ground wire running up it, then run your own wire from that ground wire, across your lawn, and into the basement and connect that to the neutral bus bar (terminal strip) in your panel.

Then turn the breaker on.

Measure the voltage at many different receptacles. If now all of the voltages change for the better and stay correct (120 volts) even when you turn a hair dryer on and off then the open neutral is upstream of your panel, probably in a part of the wiring that only the power company can get at.

Be sure to turn off your main breaker and remove this strung wire before the power company arrives because this wire will hide the broken neutral problem.

Even though you succeeded in balancing the loads, every time the refrigerator kicks on or kicks off, the loads will unbalance themselves again.


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## k_buz

At this time I would like to apologize to Snofox for missing an important string of words would have cleared some things up had I seen them. I was not aware that he was assuming the open neutral was ahead of the house main breaker, I was specifically talking about branch circuits within the house. So, for that I apologize, however, I still contend his way of temporarily fixing the problem is impractical and unsafe.


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## Tarantara

I recently encountered this situation. I was asked to look at an outlet that wasn't working. My digital tester read 160V. After finding the problem my attention turned to the 160V reading. My thought was that a voltage that high would damage electronics and burn out bulbs. The home owner stated that there never was any issues with either of those potential problems. I took the readings on almost every receptical in the home and even pulled down a light fixture. All read 160V. In my 40 years doing electrical work , If I ever ran into a change in voltage it was a voltage drop for reasons I'm sure your all aware of. Anytime rebalancing was needed was for load management, so this was something new to me. The 2 things that came to mind was the meter and even more so the voltage being sent out by the power company's transformer. Correct me if I'm wrong, when I hear open neutral, yes the hot leg will be Iive and voltages can fluctuate but I would expect the outlet or light wouldn't work. If every device in this home has the same high reading the problem, I would think has to be at the transformer. If it is only being read a certain locations then I would revert to previous posts.


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## jreagan

1. This post is 10 years old
2. Open neutrals can cause high voltages. Go watch


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## viper

k_buz said:


> Completely incorrect. No idea where you came up with this. Voltage doesn't change based on current.


LMAO! You just can't make this stuff up! It is a DIY forum. Expect some crazy replies!!!! Sometimes the advice given is just baffling.

Even though I know you know better, i'm still going to correct that "Voltage doesn't change based on current." but we know it only drops, not increases. 

Then I have cringe moments when someone says "110" or "220".....


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