Can a loose neutral be check at meter?

Answer 1

it depends on where the neutral is lost

if its loose on the street side of the meter or grounding electrode conductor one leg will have a higher voltage than the other but the grounding electrode conductor may be large enough to act as the neutral and remove all the phase imbalance

this will show current in the ground

on the load side everything will look normal

if you have 4 identical lights

2 on each leg you will not detect any difference

if you turn off one lamp

the lamp on that leg will supply the current to the two on the other

letting the single lamp see 160 v 50% brighter

and the 2 in parallel on the other leg 80v 50% dimmer

triplex wire the bare wire is the neutral and the messenger

so if a furniture van pulls to the door an snags the cable.

the neutral will break leaving about 6' of slack in the hots.( drip loops at the weather head) and they stay connected

the grounding electrode conductor is likely connected to the water line and every house on the street is too so the voltage across the break will be less than 1v unless your phase loads are all on on leg which will mean on the order of 1V

delta V= i^2*r (#2Al neutral)- i^2*r (#4cu grounding electrode conductor)