Mobile home electrical issue.

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T. M.

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Here is the scenario. 30 year old mobile home, with older ITS Gould breakers, that some of the breakers have no power, and some do. I tested the main breaker, with all the breakers off, and found 111 volts on one side, 109 on the other side, roughly 236 volts testing across the breaker, however, if I turn on certain breakers, such as water heater, kitchen, the half of my bedroom that is out, or the dryer, one side of the main drops to zero volts, and, it does not matter what combination of breakers I turn on, the one side of the main goes to zero, so,would that suggest a bad main?
 

ActionDave

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You have lost on leg of your power. Probably from your underground feed to the home.
 

T. M.

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I don't see how i could have lost one leg of power from the outside breaker/meter, when, if i have all the breakers in the house off, i show voltage on both sides of the main, and only lose power to one side if i switch any of the breakers in my house on.
 

ActionDave

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Because it's a very bad connection. You have enough juice to make your voltmeter work but if you try and do as little as make one Christmas light work you got nothing.
 

Jadnashua

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FWIW, most modern DMMs have an input impedance of over a megaohm...IOW, they look like they are not there. To provide useable current, you need not only volts (think pressure) but volume (think current). If you have a lousy connection, the volts can't push the current through to do anything. Also, when you close one of the CB's that is supplying 240vac, and one of those devices being fed by it is on, you're providing a path from one leg to the other, IOW, back feeding voltage onto the other power bus. It may not have much current, but again, if you measure with a DMM, it will look fine. IN that case, an ammeter might be a better tool...your current would read nearly zero amps.
 
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