Why 120v Between Ground And Nuetral ?

This is a bit beyond a DIY job, but some of you know that I just opened a new laundromat.  In doing so I took 10 dryers we had in storage for 2 years and installed them at the new location.  They are gas, but of course the controls are electric.  The fan motor is 240/208-120v.  The timer is 120v.  All the relays in the timers are 120, no transformers.  When we hooked everything up after two days of operation the customers complained that the time on the controls did not match their watch.  To our dismay the timers were counting down at twice the normal rate, ie. buy 6 minutes you only get 3 minutes.   This is crazy because all ten worked fine at the old location and now they are all counting down double time. 



I tinkered with the ground wire and even removed the ground to see if it would change.  Nothing.  I switched 120v hot phases and it solved the problem.  I rewired back to original and the problem returned.  I was stunned.  I then opened the sub panel and traded the two hot feeder wires from the main with each other to make the opposite phase and the problem on all ten dryers went away. 



We wired the building 120/208Y, 4 wire + ground.    Our old location was 240v delta 4 wire + ground.    Why would it do this?  I am really surprised this happened. I need to call the timer manufacturer because their engineer was stumped, also and had no idea why the timers were doing this.



What did we miss?



David
      

Hey guys,



I am trying to convert several 2 prong to 3 prong outlets throughout my house that was built in 1959. I have attached 2 photographs of the outlet, one from the right, and one from the left.



You will see the right side of the outlet has a RED and a BLACK wire attached to it. The left side has a WHITE wire.



I took the Menards employees advice that the black wire was most likely the ground, hooked it up, and blew a fuse (time delay fuses....). When I tried screwing in another fuse, it blew right away. This happened about 4 times and I got frustrated and decided to try this forum.



Any ideas as to which cable would be the ground, if any?? I'm pretty new to all of this. Any advice?



Thanks!
      

I have a wall outlet I exposed recently. It was meant originally to supply an in-wall air conditioner (long since removed). The outlet is clearly a 120V, 20A fixture. The romex supplying it, however, has been marked in indelible ink by the installer: "220" on both sides of the wire sheath. The wire is 12/2 with ground. What did he mean by this? Could this really a 220V (or 240V) receptacle? Is that possible, using 12/2 and a standard 120V outlet? How do I verify what I've got?



All I want to do is relocate the box and replace the fixture, but the 220 notation sort of threw me. Does anybody have an idea what's going on here?



I appreciate your help. I'm new here, so please try not to smack the rookie around too much.
      

I am thinking of purchasing a WineKoolr used but after looking at the manual online it states that it must be plugged into a "Dedicated separately fused, grounded, 15 amp 100-120v line." The price I can get this at is awesome, but I live in apartment and am not sure, but think I only have 1 dedicated line at all, for the fridge. The previous owners said they just had it plugged into a normal outlet fine, but I want to know if it is a serious issue to do this? I really want a nice cooler for my beer cellar since I have no actual basement, so I am really hoping I can make this work in my home. Thanks for any help!





*Someone asked me on another forum what breakers I have for where I want to install it, and its in my second bedroom.  The breaker for those outlets is a 15A.  They also said that it probably says that in the manual to cover themselves legally but I should likely be just fine.





**

Well I turned off the breakers until I found which was for the outlets in the spare room.  As far as I can tell, the only things on this circuit are the spare bedroom outlets (not the lights), and 1 outlet in the hallway.  Nothing is plugged into any of these and its a 20A circuit.
      

Today I was fixing the water valve to the washing machine, and to get access to the water line, I had to disassemble an outlet. To my shock (no pun intended), I discovered that some moron bootlegged the outlet by connecting neutral and ground together.



Now I'm concerned that I may have this elsewhere in the house. What is the best way to test for this? Obviously I will see 120 V from hot to ground in any case, so that doesn't work. Continuity between neutral and ground is normal, because they are connected at the main panel; I measured the resistance between neutral and ground at an outlet close to the main panel, and it was virtually zero. But that doesn't meat it's bootlegged.



I don't really want to take each outlet apart. And even if I do that, how would I know that the moron didn't connect ground to neutral somewhere inside a wall?



Thanks,
      

i just recently moved back into my home and found that all of my exterior power outlets seem to be dead. something must've happened while i was out of the house, but i've no idea what.



should be simple right? a breaker somewhere? interior outlets are all fine, no other apparent electrical issues. i've been to the breaker box, and there are no breakers specifically marked for the exterior outlets, and all of the breakers appear to be set/active.



anyone have any suggestions as to where to look for the problem? adv-thanks-ance for your thoughts!
      

Had a Home Inspection (don't have the report yet.)  The house was built in 1983.  One thing the inspector said was a grounding wire should be put in from the panel in the garage to the outside box.



He also said I should have a new panel put in ($ 1,500-1,700).  That's a lot of money especially when you're just buying a house.  It sort of concerns me, but he didn't sound like it was urgent.



I can't believe I'd have to replace circuit breakers.  I'll get 3 estimates when I do this.



Is this a normal problem for houses this age?



I always think of my dad's 60 yr old house and he never once had a repairman.  I think his electrical was ancient.
      

motor #1 came back from servicing and was told it was shot (he said it  was grounded).  i have another motor #2 that im going to see if hell  mount (if it runs).  however motor #2 is designed for 230v.  what needs  to be done to wire this back up considering it is a 120v service.  (i  believe motor #2 was hooked up once before on this service so i know the  power is there)
      

I built a free standing garage with main power tapped from the home breaker box.  The contractor pulled 4 wires via a conduit to the freestanding garage panel which supplies lights, a garage door, and two 20 amp outlets.



Everything worked well initially, but about 1 week ago one section of the lights in the building went out.  The contractor came out and found that one of the two hot wires in the garage panel was only seeing 100 volts and that went down if anything else was turned on.  He swapped one of the ground wires for the bad hot wire and everything now works. 



What would cause a situation like this where the hot wire apparently had a voltage loss?  Is it safe to continue with the fix where the faulty wire is now the ground?



Thanks in advance!
      

My kitchen circuit breaker tripped again (California).  Resetting the suspect circuit breaker used to fix this...   (it happens every few months) Now things are dark again in the kitchen and most of the back of the house. Resetting the usual suspect circuit breaker does not help. I reset all of them for good measure. (still dark).



The strange is when checking voltages with meter voltmeter, from the bottom-up, every other breaker terminal does not read 120V, they are OV.   All of the breakers are set properly, so why are half of them dead at their output terminal (where the wire connects)  I'm thinking possibly a buss bar problem? If so, how to troubleshoot that?





                                                                            Thx!!



                                                                       Mark