Low household line voltage

[230RN]

Low line voltage?

Been noticing the lamps around here have been looking a little yellowish lately, like a week or so.  This has been true throughout the day.  I got a little concerned about it since the proteins in cataracts are yellowish.

So  I took a measurement of the house voltage and it was pretty low, in my estimation.

Normal is right around the expected 125VAC, right now it's 116 -118VAC ( on two meters).  I gave my Variac transformer to Son2, and I don't have any other practical way of varying sine wave voltage at household levels ro see how the color changes,  So I wondered if anyone knew offhand if that kind of voltage drop (9 and 11 volts) would be very noticeable in the lighting?

Have there been any power grid problems anywhere which would necessitate transmission at lower voltages?  I googled, but found zilch on recent power grid health hits.

I have beem moving to CFLs, and lately to LEDs as well, but there are still incandescents around since I stocked up on them a long time ago.  The CFLs and LEDs seem to be dimmer, but if there's a color change, I might be imagining it or the new now-yellow ambient light might be fooling me. After all, the envelopes of the LEDs and CFLs are reflecting room ambient light (yellowish) as well as simultaneously transmitting the light they're generating.

Terry

[Nick1911]

Ran into a related problem once when the power company changed out the transformer that served my and my neighbors houses, back when I lived in a suburb.  After the work was done, I had some T12 shop lights that wouldn't kick on anymore.  I measured, and found that I was only getting 112VAC RMS.

I can't say that I noticed any color difference in any of the incandescent bulbs I might have still had around, but I'm not real observant about things like that.

Are both sides of your incoming split phase low?  How much voltage imbalance do you have?

[cordex]

Pretty sure acceptable voltage drop at the most distant outlet is 5% or down to 114v.  So 116-118 is well within the acceptable range.

[RocketMan]

Could be a lot of folks using more electric heat and putting other drains on the system due to colder winter weather.  That kind of voltage drop would be expected.

[Jim147]

Does your meter have a hertz setting? I was have some power problems last month. Voltage was a little low but hertz bounced all over the place.

Power company came out put a new transformer in and made it worse. WTH?

A couple nights later taking my daughter to a game there was a clamp on a power line glowing like a 100 watt light bulb. Called them to fix that and had 59.99 hertz and the light all worked right again.

[230RN]

"Are both sides of your incoming split phase low?  How much voltage imbalance do you have?"

Don't know.  This is an apartment and my only access to the "220" volt terminals are the stove and the A/C.  I'm reluctant to mess with either.  The "yellowness" is universal throughout my apartment and also appears to me in the yard lights and porch lights by each apartment.  I don't drive around at night, so I can't say if it is city-wide as well. 

The "low end" of 114VAC doesn't say how that affects color and brightness.  The only referent I have is I know the incandescents (years ago) in  the subway trains were 130 Volts to extend their life and it didn't seem they were particularly yellow.

 I don't see how, within wide limits, line frequency in a purely resistive load should affect the brightness except as a symptom of something else going really goofy.  

I do have several frequency meters and it's 59.96Hz right now.

[Boomhauer]

I’ve encountered issues like this before. Voltage was OK but hertz fluctuations showed a leg out. I diagnosed it solely by the information that a clock timed controller for a golf course watering system was being burned out repeatedly to the tune of $3k a pop. Boss couldn’t figure out why until I told him what the issue was and the utility technician’s Fluke meter confirmed it. Sometimes it would be OK but other times it would be wonky.

[230RN]

I noticed some frequency fluctuations and at first I thought it was a noisy appliance (somewhere) with its noise being imposed on the line sine. Turned out it was my own poor connection from my meter probes stuck into the socket.  Stabilized out at 59.97Hz at 116.1VAC as of about 10 AM MST this morning, and lamps are still yellow.  I'm going to chalk t up to low(ish) voltage and see what the future brings.  Happy Christmas, everyone !