Reading 135v plus in house. Problems?

One, I can only guess that it really is 140 v. Maybe upon installation they left with your line connected to the wrong stepdown tap

Is your "cheap" multimeter a powered model? It's a remote possibility that for some obscure reason the line isn't sinusoidal; or maybe instead of RMS it's reading peak. Try making the measurement with a more-nearly old-fashioned conventional VOM

Yeah, I'm suspecting a bad tap, going to put a call into the utility, but it's a bit of a crazy week for scheduling it.

The meter is powered, and been around a while, it could be flaky. One probe broke off when I unwrapped it this morning, lol, so it's history. Been rooting around the workshop for my old and true VOM. No luck finding it though, think I gave it to my brother years ago.

Now I want to hunt down an oscilloscope and check the waveform lol. Thanks ;-) That (non-sinusoidal) would be seriously weird though, but it would fit my life.

The multimeter was acting kind of like it was peak reading, and my UPS has been generating occasional spike reports. Thought I had the software setup to note a voltage deviance narrower than that though, 105-125v iirc, so it should have a lot more reports... but the PC it's hooked up to has probably updated some piece of bloat-ware that has disabled the UPS program.

Thank you very much for the ideas and help Dale.

I think I just panicked a bit last night, that high an overvoltage had all kinds of bad scenarios playing in my mind... overheated wiring through the house all these years being the biggest, breaking down the insulation and requiring a total gut and replace to avoid a fire. What wires I had exposed seem fine though (but none of them were pinched in tight runs, whereas others might be, and hidden). And all the minor issues with high voltage prematurely aging all the expensive gadgets in the house, didn't watch much TV or fire up the XBOX last night lol

Gotta go call the utility company, and look into if they can be held liable for issues, and getting the high voltage properly witnessed in case. Joy (not).

Secondary quick question if anybody has an idea, would a consistent high voltage produce service meter errors? Like have I been overcharged if this has been going on all these years? Or undercharged, I could live with that ;-) The utility did replace the meter a couple years ago. There's another story (idiots). Could the meter swap have screwed up the feed? I thought they were pretty much idiot proof (and with good reason).

OK, now I really have to get back to work. Later all, and thanks again.

For what it's worth, One, you're quite welcome

Unlikely

Even more unlikely

Bad neutral. That is the white wire. It could be just the outlets neutral or the whole house. 115 is low voltage the utility delivers 118-124 usually This further indicates a bad neutral to the whole house. When one leg goes up the other goes down. You can test this by loading one leg heavily and the check voltage on both legs. If they arent the same the its a bad neutral It could be on your side or the utilities. Side. Call them first its free