Electrical help please!

[RaginCagin]

Ok, about a month ago alot of you guys gave me some good advice with electriacal help as i have been building a camp. Well over the last month I have a receptical for my 220 a/c and 220 stove that has been giving me fits. Today I had a electrician go out there to test it and he said the set up was wrong. I had one 50 amp single post breaker tied into 2 recepticals for the stove and a/c. I was using 3 wire(positive,ground,neutral) # 10 romex. Well today he changed to a double post 50 amp breaker and went to a 4 wire 3 conductor # 10 wire(it is orange). He also changed out to larger receptical as mine were for 110 units. The appliances still wont come on and he is only getting 120 amps when both prongs of the volt tester is plugged into the receptical and he said it should be getting 240 volts. Well he does not know what else to do so once again I am stuck. He is thinking it is something to do with the outiside electrical box. I dont know what it would be. I have 120 amp box outside. I have it wired with aluminum powerline wire into my inside 120 amp box. Any suggestions are really appreciated.

[Joey~AP]

Is your electricain licensed?

Sumthin sounds askew! He should be able to figure it out.

Where is your lease?

[Mike Murphey]

Is this an electrician or someone that thinks they are an electrician?

[BIG BONE]

Just get a double pole breaker. That allows two hots to be taken to the receptacle and of course a ground allowing 220 volts to where you want it. That will take care of a/c and then get another double pole breaker and do the same thing so you can power stover

[BURTONboy]

The breakers could be bad, did you test them? If you have a two pole breaker you should be pulling 240v and as long as the socket is wired in correctly.

[Robby Brown]

First thing I'd check to see if you had 220v at your main box. Sounds like you lost a phase.

[Snakelover]

Would this be the only 220 coming out of the breaker box? Just thinking that maybe the breaker box itself is not wire correctly.

[RaginCagin]

He changed and put a new 50 amp double poll breaker today. He told me this was the reason I did not have 240v before but I still dont now. He wired to the first receptical then pig tailed to the next one. It is only getting 120v. I dont know if he is licensed or not. He is pretty popular around town and is just kind of a home repair man.

[RaginCagin]

This is the only 220 coming out of the box. Would could be wired bad?

[Snakelover]

First thing I'd check to see if you had 220v at your main box. Sounds like you lost a phase.

Ahhh! That would make sense. We had a storm knock somthing out at the office a while back and we lost 1/2 of all our electrical circuits. The power company changed out a fuse and we were good to go.

[RaginCagin]

So it could be on the transformer itself where the problem is possibly?

[Atfulldraw]

Sounds like the 'lectrician need to find his tester!

isolate, test and eliminate
isolate, test and eliminate......
repeat as needed

[Atfulldraw]

should be able to test the top hot lugs in the box -- the double pole breaker grabs one leg from each side

[RaginCagin]

should be able to test the top hot lugs in the box -- the double pole breaker grabs one leg from each side

So the box itself shoule be pulling 240? 120 on each hot lug coming into the box?

[Snakelover]

So the box itself shoule be pulling 240? 120 on each hot lug coming into the box?

Yes. Each lug is attached to a hot bus bar. A single pole breaker will only attach to one bus bar for 110. A double pole breaker should attach to both bus bars for 220. Usually the box is configured so that every other pole is connected to the left bar and every other one is connected to the right bar. So if one of those bus bars isn't hot, you might find that every other pole was a dead circuit. Disclaimer: I'm not an electrician. Just a guy who has wired a couple of subpanels and several new circuits over the years.