[Fusion_power]

So a few thoughts. Worth, you are a decent electrician, but in my line of work, you would be fired (or learn the right way to do the job) the first day. The reason is that every connection, every screw, every bolt, every wire nut has to be torqued to exact specifications.

Extension cords: Always purchase 12 gauge extension cords and make a point to use them as they were designed. This eventually will save a lot of grief when some lobo puts a 20 amp hammer drill on the end of the 50 ft cord. I thew away a lot of 16 ga cords over the years just to have that extra bit of knowing that the cord would not burn something up.

Clkeiper, have the ground to your house checked by someone competent. A few years ago, I turned my microwave on the day after a huge storm. The microwave fluctuated up and down with the panel LED brighter then dimmer. I immediately called the power company and turned off all appliances until they got there and replaced the ground wire which was burned in two between the transformer and the weatherhead on my house. If your lights or appliances are fluctuating it is a sign the ground is compromised somewhere in the circuit.

The strangest problem I've had to troubleshoot was when I had a crew installing a piece of communications equipment that required a separate power pole and meter. We use an elaborate verification process that starts with checking voltage at every connection point prior to actually turning on the equipment. It was very fortunate that we did this because there was something strange with the power. From one of the legs to ground we were reading 120 volts. From the other leg to ground, we were reading 220 volts. From leg to leg we were reading 120 volts. Now if you have worked with 220, you know that from leg to leg should always read 220 volts. After a lot of head scratching, the guy who was doing power up called me to come and find out what was wrong because his readings were not by the book. When I got there, the first thing I did was pull the panel on the breaker box and read the voltages direct from the power leads which gave the same results as above. I then called the power company and had them come out and rewire the connections at the transformer which had been connected up wrong. The power company went nearly ballistic when I told them the value of the equipment they had nearly fried. It was the first time I've ever seen the vice president of a power company come to a jobsite to personally chew out a lineman.