May 6, 2021 | Andy Arthur.org

A few years ago my refrigerator stopped working but the outlet was fine. I could get the refrigerator working by plugging in a space heater in my bedroom but the space heater didn’t put out much heat. My electric stove and water heater was working fine. As where my lights and other small appliances.

What was wrong?

Basically, what happened is the power company was working on the line and disconnected the center tap on the utility transformer from the ground temporarily. 240 volts worked fine, and more less loaded half of 120-volt split phase worked normally, while the more loaded half of the phase only passed as much current as the less loaded portion of the split phase.

With split phase, if the center tap is disconnected, the maximum amperage that can flow is equal to what is on both sides of the phase. So the heavier load on phase “A” will only be able to pass as much current, and therefore voltage, as phase “B”. If you are pulling 34 amps on phase “A” and 10 amps on phase “B”, the center tap is returning the 24 amps not pulled on phase “B”. No center tap, then phase “A” can only pull 10 amps. As voltage is current times resistance, as the current reduces, so does voltage.

So the refrigerator wasn’t getting enough voltage to run, without space heater providing a return path to utility transformer. Split phase transformers rely on their center tap to balance out current between the split phases.

I was reading about the growing wildlife risk out west this summer with the drought they’ve been having out west. It seems like many parts of the west are getting drier while the east is getting wetter. I wonder if this means we will have more of those gray-brown hazy summer days this summer, where a lot of sun is blocked by high-level smoke in the atmosphere and there is a ton of glare everywhere, like we had for a while last summer.

It’s been six decades since the last extreme drought in New York. Our climate getting noticeably wetter. In 2018, I was in camping in Finger Lakes National Forest. Little over two weeks after I left, there was 7 inches of rain in a half hour where I was camping, and 9 inches the next town up in Lodi where cars were floating down Main Street. Such occurrences are more likely now when there is so much water in atmosphere due to climate change.

Day: May 6, 2021💾

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I was reading about the growing wildlife risk out west this summer with the drought they’ve been having out west

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