
When there is an open-neutral, your home’s electrical items will receive up to 240V which can burn out internal components not rated for this voltage.

Computers, refrigerators, televisions and most other electric items in your house are rated for 115V with a small 10-15% margin for voltage differences. This creates a dangerous environment where electric current will flow across the entire system presenting a variety of hazards, not the least of which is a serious electrical shock. 1) Open-Neutral IdentificationĪn open-neutral occurs when a house’s neutral line is broken or open. Their primary job is read energy usage, but sometimes they help make the world just a little bit safer, too. Here are three weird and wonderful ways that smart meters provide an extra, often unknown level of protection. The meter can quickly let you know if there’s a problem so it can be investigated before becoming a bigger issue. By being able to communicate with the utility (and often the resident), smart meters are similar to the dashboard warning lights within your car. Perhaps the most overlooked and under-appreciated advantage of having a smart meter on the side of your house is the extra level of protection that it affords. Smart meters wear a lot of different hats. Reading energy usage is only one small part of their job. Today’s advanced smart meters have less moving parts than their vintage brethren, but they offer a range of benefits to consumers and utilities. For the most part, these workhorse meters did a good job of simplifying a complicated process and reading energy use accurately. There were lots of moving parts to this complex machinery and opportunities for errors.

They had to keep track of how much electricity a residential or commercial customer used. They had to keep track of how much electricity a residential or commercial customer used.Īnalog electricity meters had only one job, too. Analog electricity meters had only one job, too.
