Dear Reader:

I am having a very disturbing electrical problem. Two or three days ago, some of my lights at home would occasionally blink, dim, etc. As an electrical storm was passing in the distance, I thought nothing of this occurrence. Yesterday, I turned on the bathroom light, it blinked, then went out. Aha.. The bulb blew, change the bulb, turn on light, . . . nothing. Take old bulb; try in living room lamp, Tada, light. Put new bulb tried in bathroom light, Tada, bulb works. Re-install bulb back in bathroom fixture.

I went to the electrical panel to check the breakers and found none to be tripped, (mix of one and two pole breakers in 3 wire, 120/240 volt, system, [three 4/0 aluminum wires enter box at top]). I then checked around the house and found power in some rooms and none in others.

I recycled all of the single pole breakers (15 & 20 amp mix), one by one, . . . nothing. I turned off all breakers, the main breaker included, turned main on, then each circuit breaker, one at a time. As some of the breakers are labeled, I have spouse check specific rooms and appliances. This working, that's not. Turn all breakers off again . . .

To make a long and frustrating story short, through process of elimination, I find all circuits connected to the left hand buss are predisposed to failure. By turning on something connected to a circuit on that buss, the whole buss goes out, without any breakers tripping out. This is my reason for concern.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, ASAP.

Thank you all in advance,

Cadman

IT SOUNDS TO ME THAT YOU MY HAVE A PHASE OUT.
DO YOU HAVE A UNDRE GROUND SERVICE OR OVER HEAD SERVICE? SOME TIMES WHAT CAN HAPPEN IS A WIRE WILL BRAKE IN THE TREES LOOK REAL HARD AROUND TREES. OUR YOU MAY TO THIGHTEN YOU NUTRAL. BUT DO NOT DO ANYTHING LIVE! THIS STUFF WILL KILL YOU.

~nods~
You have a potentially dangerous problem. Call your service provider to check your electrical service. It may be on their side.
If it is not, well... copper and aluminum (to an even worse degree) have a bad habit when they have connections that are faulty. They may show good voltage when there is no load, then when you apply a load, the small area of contact(because of internal resistance) passing a normal current heats up, causes expansion, or even melts the wire where the bad contact is. Hot metal is a poor conductor, and now the added resistance produces even more heat. The lights now dim(flickering to some resonance of 60hz), and a fire can be started because the wire is heating up quickly. With any luck, the little bit of metal left in the bad contact will be vaporized, and your power will simply go out.

Did you smell hot wires when this happened? If you did, that's probably where it was.

Chartre.

have had to replace meter socket due to corrosion, thus heat build-up, thus loss of tension in meter socket, (JAWS).

NEED INFORMATION ABOUT 10/4 CABLE TO WATER HEATER. IE: I DO KNOW THAT 10/4 MEANS 4) #10AWG CONDUCTORS. DOES 10/4 COUNT THE GROUND WIRE AS ONE OF THE FOUR? WIRE COLORS WITHIN CABLE?

I HAD TO REMOVE OFF-PEAK TIMING CIRCUIT TO WATER HEATER. ELECTRICIAN TIED A BLACK AND RED WIRE TOGETHER IN SERVICE BOX, AND REMOVED THE TWO RED WIRES TO THE TIMER/SWITCH. HAVE PURCHASED A NEW WATER HEATER WHICH IS WIRED DIFFERENTLY THEN THE OLD ONE I'M REPLACING, ONLY TWO WIRES PLUS GROUND. I KNOW THE BLACK AND RED WIRES ARE NOW ONE. DO I CONNECT TOGETHER AT WATER HEATER ALSO - OR - CLIP RED WIRE SHORT AND SEAL OFF WITH WIRE NUT AND TAPE OR CRIMPON BLIND SPLICE ?

ANY AND ALL HELP APPRICIATED !

CADMAN

The real way you say it is 10/3w ground< in romex. You do not need too count the ground.
Qustion is the new water heater 110 or 240,And what is the amp draw.
Or the best thing is just call you electrican.