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Update: That weird flicker in the old theater downtown taught me a voltage lesson
I was working on the lighting rig at the Grandview Theater last month, fixing some intermittent flicker in the house lights. My meter showed 120v at the panel, but when I checked at the first fixture in the run, it was dropping to 112v under load. The whole run was original cloth-covered wire from the 40s. My boss just said 'voltage drop, kid' and had me pull a new home run. I never realized how much old, long wiring could choke the voltage before seeing those numbers. Has anyone else run into this with vintage buildings? What's your fix besides a new circuit?
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evana7117d ago
Cloth wire from the 40s, huh? Ever find anything weird inside those walls?
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faith74117d ago
That voltage drop seems pretty normal for old wire over a long run. I've seen way worse in some of these old buildings and the lights still worked fine for decades. Sometimes you just clean the connections at the fixture and the panel, and the problem goes away. Pulling a whole new home run feels like overkill unless you're actually adding more load.
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