Open neutrals

Watch out for open power neutrals. Open power line neutrals make your house grounds hot. Small groundwires at the meter won't carry all the current when the power company's goes open. Your neighbors heater and lights may be using your ground, in fact, to operate. This week a house (big expensive house) a couple of blocks away caught on fire. The fire department was able to put it out but the firemen complained about getting shocked even after the power company pulled the meter (pulling the meter doesn't open the neutral)Next day the house across the street caught on fire. One of the neighbors went to the water department and complained that every time he took a shower, he got shocked. The power company finally found an open primary neutral a block away.

That's why backfeeding generators into welding plugs is foolish.
Can't get people with little to no knowledge of electricity to understand. They seem to think if "it works" then their "jerry rigged" mess is safe.

I'm a retired electronics engineer. I feed my standby generator into a 3 terminal outlet. I've had no problems. So please explain a bit more to help me understand. I didn't study much on 60 Hz power in the engineering courses I took as I went quickly to the electronics courses. Thanks for your help in understanding this.

Pull the main fuses or shut off the circuit breakers.Linemen have to treat all lines as hot plus your little generator would stall with all the loads on a line.

I agree these scenarios you describe can and infact to happen. I have seen them as well.

A house or any building with a properly installed grounding electrode system will not ever experience this though.

It consists of much more than a ground rod driven at the electrical service.

If you hook a back-up generator in via a receptacle in any way, you MUST turn off the main disconnect (a.k.a. main breaker) With the main breaker in the off position you will not be able to feed power back into the utility company lines.

HOWEVER!! - the ONLY safe way to intall a back -up generator is via a transfer switch - either manual or automatic. Most states have laws that govern these types of things - and most utility companies require notice that back-up generators are installed. (lineman safety issues)

As for your generator being connected via 3 wires - you are essentially running without proper grounding - if you have your system isolated from the utility company then you pose no risk to anyone except yourself and those who come into your house while you are using it.

Pat that's is why an open nuetral connection can be so dangerous.Most people know that nuetrals carry back the unbalanced load ,but don't know that it also carries back the unbalanced voltage.A properly wired generator under utility open nuetral connections would not be safe unless all power connections from utility were open.THAT CANNOT BE ACCOMPLISHED WITH A TRANSFERR SWITCH.(unless it is not wired to code)That is why it can be so dangerous to bond water pipes, gas pipes, ect. to nuetral connections at utility services.

this is why a good lineman with the transformer switch open [high side]checks for voltage on secondarys .then grounds the secondary side of the transformer.to protect himself from feedback. in case of any 'weekend 'electrcians out there.worse that can happen,burn out the windings in the generator.most lineman wish generators were not out there.we know its a real and present danger in our trade.

this is why a good lineman with the transformer switch open [high side]checks for voltage on secondarys .then grounds the secondary side of the transformer.to protect himself from feedback. in case of any 'weekend 'electrcians out there.worse that can happen,burn out the windings in the generator.most lineman wish generators were not out there.we know its a real and present danger in our trade.

Pat, GOOD POST, a few weeks back we pretty much beat this topic to "death" No pun intended...... If I can find it I posted an almost entire thesis about this over on johnnypopper.com and I will post it here.

YESSSSSSSS an open Neutral can pose a hazard

The Neutral (a grounded conductor) and the Equipment Grounding Conductor (EGC, a grounding conductor) are often misunderstood by lay persons. Out on the utility High Voltage primary and at a typical 120/240 volt Low Voltage Secondary ITS THE NEUTRAL THAT GETS A BOND TO MOTHER EARTH (its a grounded conductor) which serves as a common zero voltage potential reference for the entire system.

Again at the homes service entrance (perhaps up on weatherhead riser or meter base or main panel) its THE NEUTRAL THAT BONDS TO MOTHER EARTH VIA A MADE GROUNDING ELECTRODE (via a No 4 copper wire grounding electrode conductor) SUCH AS A DRIVEN INTO THE ROD GROUND ROD(S) OR BURIED PIPES ETC ETC. Then at the main panel THE NEUTRAL BUSS AND EQUIPMENT GROUND BUSSES ARE BONDED TOGETHER, but are NOT rebonded at any downstream sub panels

NOWWWWW as the Neutral is tied to mother earth out at the utility pole or pad mount and at the service entrance and the EGC (grounding conductor) and Neutral are bonded at the service entrance etc etc if theres an open Neutral, the voltage between a hot L1 or L2 would still seek to cause current flow between either eventually back to the transformer (voltage source) AND IT WILL TRY AND FLOW ANYWHERE IT CAN IF THE NEUTRAL ISNT PRESENT WHICH CAN BE A HAZARD CUZ THAT ANYWHERE MAY BE THE EGC (which is tied to the outer metal case of some appliances which you may touch) OR YOUR BODY OR EARTH ETC. It all depends on where the fault is and where the open Neutral is and who what n where is wired in between.......

For many of the reasons cited above and to save a linemans life its best to use a proper transfer switch or an interlock if you use a home genertaor. Also if you use a 2 pole (L1 and L2) transfer switch and DO NOT switch the Neutrals, you need to UNBOND any genny Neutral to frame bond AND YOU NEED TO CARRY 4 (2 hots, Neutral, EGC) NOT 3 WIRES from the genny to the xfer switch.

Thats why a 2 pole 3 wire grounding receptacle (like maybe a 240 volt welder receptacle with 2 hots and EGC) isnt correct for a 2 pole non Neutral switched transfer arrangement, cuz such is making the EGC and Neutral the same (they should be seperate at other then the main panel). The certain wrong combination of open or shorted Neutrals and EGC's at the wrong place could even energize the EGC so if you touch the appliances outer metal case YOU COULD DIEEEEEEEEE

This is just wayyyyyyyy toooooooo complicated to try n explian to lay persons in a few sentences here and any attempt just confuses them. Its just impossible to cover here what takes books to fill and years of experience by linemen and electricians and electrical engineers to maybe fully understand. THATS WHY ITS IMPORTANT TO LISTEN TO ELECTRICAL INSPECTORS AND ELECTRICIANS AND ENGINEERS AND THE NATIONAL ELECTRICAL CODE and hire a professional if you dont know what youre doing. The life you save by doing it right may be your familys or your own

Hope this helps but again dont feel bad if you dont understand it, I designed secondary electrical power distribution systems for years and its more complicated then a lay person might figure thats why use a licensed electricians and consult with inspectors and use the NEC cuz most of those people DO UNDERSTNAD THIS STUFF and doing it right can save your life or prevent a house from burning......

God Bless Yall n stay safe n use caution in working with home generators is all I can say

John T retired electrical engineer in Indiana
Untitled URL Link

Nothing is fool-proof. Someone freezing to death due to lack of power, when they own a generator is also foolish. It's a matter or priorities.

In an ideal situation, everybody ought to plan ahead and have a safe backup since electricity isn't sent to our houses by God.

I suspect many more people die during power outages due to freezing to death and CO poisoning from alternative heat sources - then anyone does from cobbed-up temp. electric power hookups.

Backfeeding can be done safely by the right person, and a house wired by the latest code can still result in electrocution. All you need is the right idiot.

I worked as a lineman 40 years ago, and even then we were supposed to treat all lines as live, regardless of the situation. We didn't, but we were supposed to.

We feed into welderplug and run the entire dairy. Not the proper way----but that"s the way it"s done here.

http://www.reliancecontrols.com/ProductDetail.aspx?TWB2012DR

It's simple, not expensive, easy to install and use.
Tell me you can find the time and money for everything else around the place. But you can't install a proper transfer switch?

I find it difficult to believe that you can't take the word of 10,000's of thousands of electrical inspectors and engineering professionals. In a topic that they are experts in, while all you know about is pulling t!ts and shoveling sh!T.

What bothers me about this post is that the power company neutral which is also ground was open a block away from the houses. I don't see any prevention the home owner could have done to prevent problems. It seems to me that no matter the quality of the grounds at the homes that there would be a high resistance a block away from the open power company grounded conductor. What am I missing?

Some things are not figured out until disaster strikes.When you get shocked it is usually something weird and even though you took normal precautions have to figure out why.Often its from a mistake by others.Open neutrals also burn out all appliances in the building on multi-wire branch circuits causing much distress.Especially for renters when landlord denies all responsibility.When you feel a tingle in the shower the time to troubleshoot is NOW!Bad grounding is killing GIs in Iraq needlessly.

(quoted from post at 13:14:39 02/14/09) the power company neutral which is also ground
. What am I missing?

Click to expand...

You are missing the fact that ground and neutral are not the same.

The neutral is an insulated current carrying conductor.
The earth bond to the neutral keeps the 120,277 or 347 lines to no more than approx 120,277 or 347V above true earth potential.

The ground system is to hold water pipes, building frame work, and electrical equipment chassis to near earth potential.

Why do electrical systems run bare neutral conductors and insulated grounds? Instead of just one bare wire or just one insulated wire?

I am talking about the power company ground which in the post was called neutral as he said it was on the primary side - if you look at my power pole there are only TWO wires ONE 14.4 KV HOT and ONE GROUND NO SEPARATE INSULATED CURRENT CONDUCTOR . That ground in this case is the ground and that has a wire going to ground at each pole. I am not talking about in the house. But break that ONE GROUND line a block away and I still say What am I missing????

Same thing except it's on the primary side of the service transformer instead of on the secondary side.
Earth, ground rods, ground plates and ground wires are a poor conductor of electricity. Compared to a proper hard wired neutral.
The wires are bare because they are up above easy reach.
The primary side neutral gets bonded to earth as well to keep it's potential near true earth potential.
People mix up terms and different countries use different words. For example there is no ground on a tractor or vehicle chassis. Yet 99.9999% of the population refer to chassis return as ground.
This this carries over and gets mixed with AC terms. On AC equipment we use a neutral potential return conductor. And we ground equipment chassis to near earth potential. No normal running current through the ground system.

I have been working with electricity for over 50 years and I well understand ground, neutral or grounded conductor. Also I have worked in electronics and we always called chassis common as ground and most schematics will label as gnd. In the British equipment it is always called earth although there is no earth near by.
What I was concerned in this post is that Pat's final sentence was "The power company finally found an open primary neutral a block away."
I assumed since it was on the primary HV side that it was the common ground wire that is grounded at each pole that he was calling neutral wrongly or rightly. Then my question really was "what could the home owner have done to prevent this type problem?" It seems to me that the current flow to the next transformer would be through true earth ground which a block away would surely be a high resistance. I don't see that the installation at the home could have been improved to prevent the fires that he said were caused by a open neutral a block away on the primary side. I was wondering if there was something that I missed or did not understand about this story.

article self explanatory
Pole Transformer

The details are a bit sketchy.
It's possible an entire street is served by one transformer and 120/240 is just ran down the poles.
There is a common tie with the ground between the primary neutral and the secondary neutral.Something open could boost voltage?
It also could be the homes burning had the only decent grounds in the neighborhood? Too high of current.
The neutral current from several services was perhaps trying to return to the transformer's neutral through the ground system.
Goes to show why it isn't safe to try and push neutral current through a ground system. Can't seem to impress some people however.
They see the lights come on and they can't imagine there could be a problem "because it works".

this thread my friends is the reason that the national electrical code, and electrician licensing exits.

do the job right, by a qualified person, these risks become very, very minimal.

BandD you are WRONG.

There is a BIG difference between primary and secondary neutral and ground. On the secondary (120/240) the neutral and ground are connected ONLY at the service entrance and the transformer pole. But the primary (2400,7200, and up) neutral is grounded very often. At each customer pole through the customer's ground rod as well as the pole ground and at each pole with a lightning arrestor and at other points just for the heck of it including at the substation. This MULTIPLE ground causes a significant fraction of the neutral return current to pass through the ground. Yes, the earth is a poor conductor, but it generally has a large cross section to make up for and a concept called Carson's ground conductor shows that on a primary circuit more than HALF the neutral circuit current will be in the earth. That large cross section earth conductor also has lower inductance than the overhead neutral wire which also diverts current and voltage drop to the earth conductor of the neutral circuit.

There IS a serious voltage drop near the ground rod and that often is what gives rise to problems with shocking cows and pigs at waterers and milkers. Utilities can be forced to break the primary to secondary neutral bond, but they don't like it. On a 2400/4160 volt Y circuit, I've seen 20 volts from earth to ground rod and that severely inhibits cattle taking a drink.

This I learned from studying power systems analysis at graduate level.

On the primary, neutral and ground are together and there is a lot of current in the earth.

Gerald J.

I investigated a house fire once where a tree (falling after being cut) pushed a 7200 volt primary wire into the grounded neutral service wire going to the house. The few hundred amps (not enough to trip the 7200 volt breaker) of ground current ignited that house from inside the walls from the hot ground wires going to the antenna tower, the water pump, and the local service entrance ground rod. The last one would have been #4 or 6, the ground wire to the others would have been no larger than 12 and that few hundred amps of fault current burned the ground wire (probably #4 or 6) off on the pole.

I've never seen a house burned so thoroughly.

In this reported situation, the current through the grounds of the house might only have been 50 amps but that's enough to heat up #12 to ignite wood.

The breaking of the power side neutral isn't common and that's part of the function of the multiple pole and service entrance ground rods to carry it, and divert it from the house wiring. The problem would have been worst if the town distribution was 2400/4160 so the primary currents are only 1/10th those on the secondary.

As for protection, I suppose a large fuse in the neutral which is opposed by codes, had a chance, perhaps a disconnect relay that was triggered to shut off when the voltage between neutral and earth rose would work. Perhaps a shunt trip main breaker IF it opened the neutral also. Otherwise breaking the hots would have no benefit since the problem was stray primary ground currents reaching earth through parts of the house wiring that couldn't carry the current.

Gerald J.

Don't know where I'm wrong. I agree entirely with what you are saying about both the primary and secondary side neutrals. And about grounding.

My old friend Gerald, a fellow Electrical Engineer (but he still practices IM LONG RETIRED) IS CORRECT... I designed power distribution systems at our large naval indusrial facility years ago. WE EARTH GROUNDED THE PRIMARY NEUTRAL (a grounded current carrying conductor) AT LIKE EVERY 3RD OR 4TH AERIAL POLE,,,,

ALSO at a service entrance drop where a pole mounted transformer was BOTH the Primary and Secondary Neutrals were grounded,,,,,,,,,

ALSO at the service entrance either at the weatherhead riser or the meter base or the main entrance panel, the secondary Neutral was earth grounded...

ONLY AT THE MAIN SERVICE ENTRANCE WERE THE EQUIPMENT GROUND CONDUCTOR BUSS AND THE NEUTRAL BUSS BONDED TOGETHER AND NOTTTTTTTTTT AGAIN AT ANY DOWNSTREAM SUB PANELS

ALSO my good friend the Buick Man IS CORRECT,,,,,,,NEUTRAL (a grounded current carrying conductor) and the Equipment Ground,,,,,ARE NOT THE SAME

The Neutral carries return current back to the voltage source (transformer) while the Equipment Ground is for carrying fault curreNt ONLY by providing a dedicated low impedance return path for fault current so the breaker trips

DO NOT MIX N MATCH NEUTRALS IT CAN BE HAZARDOUS



Hope this helps yall. For a lay person who doesnt understand this dont feel bad, it takes study to fully comprehend all this. Thats why if you dont know why or how to properly n safely connect a generator or transfer switch consult a licensed electrician or engineer WHO DO UNDERSTAND THIS and the National Electrical Code It may save you or your familys life and/or home

Keep safe yall n God Bless

John T Retired Electrical Engineer

John T and Buickadeere and Gerald, You are all preaching to the choir. I was addressing the original post by Pat that stated that “The power company finally found an open primary neutral a block away.” Buickadeere says that neutral and ground are not the same. That only applies to in the house on the secondary side. In the house, the ground only carries current during a fault and not normally. I never said that neutral and ground were the same on the secondary side. But on the primary side neutral and ground are the same and that is where Pat said the power company found an open primary neutral a block away.
I am NOT AN ENGINEER but a technician. I see only two wires on the primary side of a single phase HV line in my neighborhood and one of those lines is grounded at every pole and it is GROUND and also the Neutral from the Y output three phase lines that are one block away.

I also see that the primary grounded neutral is also connected to the center tap Neutral of the pole transformer that enters the residence as a 3 wire circuit consisting of two hots and one neutral that is also ground.
ONLY at the main entrance panel do I see that the single wire grounded neutral is again bonded to the residence GROUND. I am well aware that the BARE wire in Romex or green wire in conduit is only used as a safety precaution to protect from shock, etc on metal appliances fixtures and such. The bare safety ground serves no function in two wire lamp cords and such.

My original post was I did not understand how an open neutral on the primary side caused a fire in a house one block away. My point was that there are some other facts that we are not hearing or are unknown. I can see if the primary neutral was open a block away and the pole ground was open and the home ground was very poor or NOT CONNECTED to the neutral at the home that the HV would feed through the transformer in to the poorly or non grounded neutral in the house and all hell would break loose and the house would burn down. I just did not think that the open primary neutral alone was the only problem.

I was very interested in Gerald’s comments on the amount of current flow in the actual earth. I have noticed that in most cases the primary grounded neutral is a smaller gage wire than the hot and that explains that. Just my comments but I am well aware of the difference of neutral and ground in the residence wiring…….. One of my jobs was as a home inspector where I found many home owner installations and repairs that were dangerous but I also found many licensed electricians tied neutral and ground together in sub-panels.

I posted a reply but had to re boot, luckily I had it saved so here it is below.. I THINK ITS JUST A MATTER OF SEMANTICS ......SEEMS LIKE YOU UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT BUTTTTTTTTTTT WE SIMPLY DONT AGREE ON WORDS AND TERMINOLOGY. Up there in the air on a single phase HV primary of two wires, one is Neutral the other is hot phase conductor, the Neutral (not mother earth) carries the return current and the Neutral just happnes to be grounded cuz a grounding electrode conductor (say a No 4 bare copper wire) is bonded to it which is bonded to a grounding electrode, a copper rod driven in the ground. You can call the wire up in the air a Ground, I prefer the correct engineerign term for that wire, the NEUTRAL which is a grounded conductor. Sure I recall my uncles n grandpa and farmers calling it a GROUND, but actually its the Neutral that happens to be bonded to earth ground (guess thats why they called it ground???)

COPY OF SAVED POST

Fun discussion Tech 4 my good man, Hey I enjoy this and am NOT scolding anyone, just trying my darndest to help n educate yall


The difference I have with you (I bet Gerald n Buick would agree) as a former power distribution design engineer is your CALLING THE NEUTRAL A GROUND....ItS NOT A "GROUND"... Whats happening is the NEUTRAL is bonded to mother earth to try n keep the grid n all homes etc at one common zero reference potential of which good ol Mother Earth is the best available. Thats why the utility HV primary has the Neutral earth grounded (every few poles and where transformer drops are etc) so often and why the low voltage secondary is earth grounded TO TRY N KEEP EVERYTHING AT THE SAME POTENTIAL.

The plain old mother earth isnt a good conductor, the Neutral is the return path back to the Primary HV transformer. Theres 2 wires up there on the pole lines in a single phase HV primary A NEUTRAL AND A HOT PHASE CONDUCTOR NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GROUND WIRE. Sure, the Neutral is tied to mother earth ground, buttttttt Its notttttt a ground, mother earth is a ground. There is a no 4 bare copper wire ran from a driven ground rod up to the HV Neutral making it a GROUNDED current carrying conductor

That single phase high voltage primary, say 7200 or 9600 volts has 2 wires........Hot on top and Neutral on bottom....The Neutral carries back the return current....The Neutral IS NOT A GROUND,,,,,The primary or secondary HAS NO GROUND,,,,,,,ITS JUST THAT THE NEUTRAL (a grounded current carrying conductor) IS BONDED TOOOOOOOOOOO GROUND

Again, fun discussion and I enjoy helping and dont aim to sound like a grouch or teacher lol BUTTTTTT The Neutral still is notttttttt a ground (Primary or Secondary) although some lay persons n farmers etc may mistakenly call it a ground, that dont make it so........

Great thread, thanks to all, hope this helps butttttt dont feel bad if its still confusing, it sure was to me years ago. I hope Gerald n Buick can help explain this cuz Im ust NOT doing a good job sorry

John T

I promise that this will be my last try and post. I have never indicated that the main flow of current on the GROUNDED NEUTAL was through the earth and said that it was interesting that Gerald said “ This MULTIPLE ground causes a significant fraction of the neutral return current to pass through the ground.” I may use the term ground indicating a grounded connection which you can argue but still the primary line neutral is a common grounded conductor.
This topic has gotten way off the original post which I was questioning. I have always tried to understand why something went wrong and what could have prevented future problems. I have seen many electricians that followed the code but did not understand the reason why. I would like to know how an open neutral on the primary side one block away could cause a house fire. We can argue all day whether I know the difference between neutral and ground but that will not tell me the path that current took to the house and what can we do to prevent such problems. I as a home owner have no idea the condition of the neutral wires one block away from my house and what could I do to prevent that wire breaking and not burn my house down. Was there multiple failures? Was the house wired to code? If there were not multiple failures and the house was wired to code then we have a very scary situation that should be investigated and corrected. I would hate to know one windy night that a tree can fall on the primary neutral and my house goes up in flames. That was the reason for my original post and I got attacked that I don’t know the difference between ground and neutral but no answers on what could have happened to the house in the original post by Pat. ……….tech4

Because the earth is not that great a conductor, compared to short (less than miles) metal conductors in the neutral circuit, the neutral return current gets distributed to all the available ground circuits. Some of those ground circuits are intentional like ground rods hooked up with somewhat sturdy wire. Some will vary from house to house and can be grounded radio towers and water pumps and other outdoor gadgets that happen to be in contact with a good ground connection (especially the water pump in a deep well) but that ground connection isn't always substantial. We don't know the primary voltage or the house wiring details. We dont' know that house wasn't wire with aluminum for many branch circuits that easily burns open when overloaded. If the primary distribution was 2400/4160 (in use in older town distribution yet), a few homes drawing 100 amps at 240 add up to a few times 10 amps at 2400 and those few amps, like 40 or 50 can make a water pump ground wire heat a great deal.

Then we assume without evidence that the service entrance and pole grounds were properly made. I've seen a ground rod for a service entrance on a nearly new house slipped between the entrance conduit and the concrete basement wall, all in loose backfill. A ground problem in that house caused the house to burn and that slock rod installation was only one of several cheats that wireman applied. I think he bought the burned house after my deposition. I know it didn't go to trial after I enumerated how many times he cheated. It was clear he knew the code and worked to hide his cheats to save a few bucks and minutes of work.

Gerald J.

Gerald J's house fire explanation has well covered one way an open neutral can cause fires etc.
The other problem is an open neutral can leave your 120/240 domestic power service providing maybe 20V and 220V to your 120V appliances and 240 to the 240V well pump, baseboard heaters, water heater etc.
120V appliances with 220V applied tend to smoke and flame.
The primary neutral running down the road is still a neutral even when it's bonded to earth. It's a necessary evil to have to bond the neutral every few power poles.
Otherwise the bond between the primary and secondary neutral at the service transformer. Is #1 going to raise voltage on the building grounded equipment to 5,10,20V above true earth potential. You as well as your terrified livestock are going to get shocked.
#2 your power utility saves loosing some power to I2R losses.one the neutral.
Sorry if you felt attacked. We get people on here like "leaky boots" who somehow get the idea it's ok to back feed a generator through a three prong welding receptacle.
Nothing that any learned and experienced electrical person can drive it through their thick heads. That #1 using the ground as a current carrying conductor for the neutral is dangerous. #2 That there are real and important reasons for using a proper transfer switch.

"My original post was I did not understand how an open neutral on the primary side caused a fire in a house one block away. My point was that there are some other facts that we are not hearing or are unknown." Agreed!
While the POCO may indeed have found an open primary neutral ( that is what the two local POCOs call it) that is not the cause of the reported problem. The coop POCO that serves my residence will even leave the primary neutral disconnected for short intervals without problems. The transformer primary circuits is completed in those cases by the Earth-Terra Firma. Yes, I do know what I am talking about. Say an ice storm takes down a tree which takes down the primary lines, 7200 volts. The POCO will reconnect the hot primary line and go on reconnecting it as necessary to restore power. The primary CURRENT at each transformer is quite small and the Earth handles it well- it did at my house! Then the POCO comes back and reconnects the primary neutral to restore the system completely. I do not necessarily approve of the practice but it works. I have helped their linemen with such work.

Very few engineers or electrical inspectors could get the milking done on a 20 cow dairy.

You sure do have a way with words buickddeere. You always have some little comment to make to put someone down. Well I am a dairy farmer and also a guy that will put a diesel into a gas side console 4020. So go ahead and put me down to if it makes you feel better. We all cant be perfect like you.

I finally got around to catching this thread. Interesting to say the least.

One thing that occured to me that may or may not make a difference but the deal with the house burning down a couple blocks away makes me wonder about a street light circuit out on the street and running for a couple blocks or more. Would that street light circuit back feed down the line somewhere or maybe it just dead ends, I don't know?