Electrical Problems Suck

[alantig]

What a week. Bad wind storms earlier this week. Our power flickered more than usual, but with the wind, it really wasn't that surprising. What was surprising was when it happened when I was in the bathroom and the light went out for 3 or 4 seconds - but the bedroom light stayed on. We realized that only part of the house was going out - the rest was good.


First thought - problem with the wiring in the house. Called my dad, who used to be an electrician, described what was happening and asked if he'd ever seen this. "Yeah, that's not all that uncommon. You have a loose connection on one leg coming into the house."


Called the power company. They said they'd send someone out. They called back - at 1 AM. We said it had stopped because the wind had died down, but I asked if someone could still check it out in the next 2-3 days. The guy said he'd send someone. And he did - they showed up at 2:30 AM. I was still awake because I was off all week. Couldn't see much, so he said he'd send someone out the next day. That guy came out, said it looked to be in the tree, he'd schedule a service crew, who would probably replace my neighbor's outdated feed. I noticed yesterday that was done.


Today, the problem happened again, but with much less wind. Called back to see if they were still planning to trim the trees. The CSR said nothing was noted, but she'd send someone out. That guy came out, I told him what was up, and he said he'd investigate a few things.


That was where the good news ended. Turns out the wire where the power company's line connects to mine went bad (this is a long-term process). Not something the power company fixes. Have to get an electrician in - oh, and by the way, you have 10 days to get it done. The guy said they'd probably run a new line from the connection down to the meter, a new meter pan, and a new line into the house, and because I have fuses, they'd probably want to do a new service panel. On the plus side, I'll finally have breakers after years of talking about it.


First call was to my dad to see if he knew anyone (he's retired). The guy he usually works with is away hunting. He didn't really know anyone else. Long story short, we got in touch with a company owned my one of my daughter's friend's dad, and they're coming out tom'w. Going to be a four-figure repair, but it has to be done - we only have half power. We've got the furnace, some of the bedroom lights, and a circuit in the kitchen. The rest is out. I'm running my cable modem, TV and fridge off an extension cord (there was only a microwave on that circuit), and we may add a lamp just for some light.


Not how I wanted to spend the last two days of vacation...

 

[László]

"Could be worse."

"How could it be worse?"

"Could be me!"

 

[JMintzer]

Wow! The power company isn't responsible to deliver power to your meter? Really?

Here in MD, they are. Well, at least Pepco is...

A coupla' years ago, we were having brown outs. Every time the dryer kicked on, the lights in my office would dim light when they fired up "old sparky" in a prison movie!

We called Pepco, and they determined that one of our feeder lines had corroded and we were only working off of one line. Apparently, we use as much power as the Griswold's in "Christmas Vacation", and a single line couldn't cut it...

Anyway, they returned in about an hour with some sort of magic box on a dolly that took power from the good line, and added power to the bad line at the meter box. Everything was sealed tight, with locks and clip tags, and I was told not to futz with anything, that they would be back in a few days to trench a new cable. When they left, the problem was solved. No more lights dimming...

True to their word, they were back within a few days and they replaced BOTH lines, as they were 30 years old and they didn't want to come back when the other line went bad...

Of course they cut my FiOS line in the process, but Verizon fixed that in 2 days...

 

[alantig]

Nope - here it's to the connection. All the wiring at the house is the owner's responsibility.

Of course, one of the key words in your account is 'trench' - we get the joy of above ground wires. Meaning trees, ice, snow, animals. Tons of fun.

We've had long-runnning issues w/bad lines with Verizon (copper land-line). They've all but begged us to go to FIOS for our phone.

And yeah, I know - first-world problems. But I'm glad it was found this way and not by a fire inspector. I should never have to worry about this again. And I'm not nearly as freaked as I was when I realized Monday that only part of the house was going out - I was sure it was something in the house and it was going to be expensive. Well, I was half wrong!

ETA - and we've had the Old Sparky issue for quite some time, but chalked it up to an older house with an insufficient meter base. Turns out it was probably partly the line, too. Either way, should be taken care of after this.

But weird how my mind didn't adapt to all this. Every time I heard a truck, my brain went "power company?" Even though I knew exactly what was going on. And I'm not afraid of the dark, but man, it felt like the darkness was sucking the life out of the room until I hooked up a light. And that was with the TV and internet going.

 

[John Beef]

Home ownership. Getting in the way of nice new PRSi since 1985.

We're on the hook for a new roof this month. After that record setting day where we got over 4 inches of rain in about 3 hours back in September, where we had three different roof leaks causing about $2500 in damage to the interior of the house, we got several roofers out and they showed us the evidence. Keep in mind this is Phoenix and we get about 7 inches of rain per year, so 4" in 3 hours is absolute insanity.

I know they do it differently nearly everywhere else, but here, they put a layer of felt paper over the roof plywood, then cover the felt with tile, though older houses tend to have shingles. The tile keeps the sun off the felt, and it's only the felt that does the waterproofing. The tile also decouples where the sun hits and where heat transfers into the attic, the idea being it's more energy efficient. People with roof shingles have significantly higher utility bills, and the shingles don't last as long in our intense summer sun.

Anyway, our house is 33 years old and there have been many repairs to the underlayment over that time, but much of the felt is 33 years old, and it's only supposed to last 10-15 years. So, we're on the hook for a complete $12k roof replacement. This time, the underlayment will be a double layer of fiberglass based felt that lasts a lot longer than the organic stuff. But still, it's costing a metric shipload to get fixed. At least we won't have to worry about it for another 15+ (hopefully) years.

So, I feel your pain, right around this time of year you want to be thinking about giving nice things to people. Not going to be quite as nice this year. Oh well, stuff happens.

 

[watelessness]

That does blow, but perhaps it's also a good time to wire the house for a generator. Been there, done that, and have never looked back.

 

[alantig]

Yep - generator wiring is under discussion. Even if this guy doesn't do it, my dad said we'd get it done. We've actually talked about it for a couple years, but it wasn't as straightforward with the fuses as it will be with breakers.

And John - I feel your pain, although slightly differently. We got a new roof earlier this year, courtesy of a hail storm. We were actually home when the storm hit, and it wasn't too bad here. My daughter was at her boyfriend's a couple miles away, and her car got dinged pretty good. Didn't think anything of it, even after a neighbor said we should get it checked. He had someone out putting on a new roof in a few days, but he's extremely particular about his roof (he's up there with a leaf blower probably 8 times year when the weather's good). Then we started seeing roofing jobs pop up like crazy around us. Ended up getting it checked just before time ran out, and sure enough, they said we needed a new one. Guy came out and did it this spring. We went with the one shingle style they had that was rated energy efficient, and I have to say, I was blown away - it did not get nearly as hot in here during the summer as it has in the past. The AC ran much less than in years past - to give you an idea how little it ran, the basement was probably at least 6-8 degrees warmer than usual because there was no cooler air sinking in the house. I actually turned the AC on manually once or twice to make sure it wasn't broken.

And I misunderstood the guy on the phone - I was anticipating work today. It will be later in the week - just waiting for the call with the prices to decide what exactly we're doing. But it looks like Thursday will be the day.

 

[Mikegarveyblues]

Yes, yes they do!

Especially when you find out someone has done a pi55 poor DIY job on the electrics (Illegal in the UK but that doesn't stop people) and the first electrician you paid a wad of cash to (Just before you bought the house) missed that fact.

Our house has messed up electrics and the electrician we hired (who did do a good job) had to come up with a bit of a bodge to get us enough juice to various points in the house.

Good news is that we have circuit breakers installed now so the house is safe. Whoever lived here before was running a major risk of a fire and lethal shock every day!

Expensive business getting your electrics sorted but it's worth the money knowing you're safe.

 

[alantig]

Absolutely, Mike. My dad has apologized several times because he can't work on it, but I told him that these guys will be in and out in far less time than we could do it, or the guy he helps occasionally. They'll have everything they need and then some. I can be a smart guy at times, but especially knowing when to bring in the big guns.

It's funny what some of those guys do. The first house my wife and I owned, the back doorbell didn't work. So my dad came out to take a look at it, opened up the box where the connections were (I think so it would ring downstairs), and it was such a jumble that all he could say was, "What in the world is this? This doesn't make sense."

Even better - a high school friend of my wife (and a woman I dated) married an engineer. My wife went to visit them one time, and he had the covers off a couple light switches and was working on them. She said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm flipping these around - they should go up to turn them on, but lately I've had to push them down to go on." My wife looked at him for a minute then walked away and said to his wife, "Aren't those three-way switches?"

 

[Goldtop]

Alan,

What a mess! And great timing too, as is so often the case with things like this. I wish you the best getting it all sorted out. These days, I live in an apartment, but for many years back when I was married we owned/were buying our home. I miss those days, but I don't miss the constant work it was to keep things going smoothly.

Lloyd

 

[vchizzle]

Damn, that sucks Alan. Hopefully all goes smoothly.

 

[alantig]

Thanks, Vaughn.

Yeah, it did - everything was done when I got home from work. Had my dad come out incase there were any questions my son wasn't sure about, but in the end, it was unnecessary. It's one of those things that creeps up on you - I didn't realize how bad the power supply had gotten. When I opened my son's door, I almost got knocked backward because the light was brighter. But the power is banging now - no sag when the furnace kicks in. I can turn the stereo on if the TV is on with no issues. Sa-weet!

 

[watelessness]

Thanks, Vaughn.

Yeah, it did - everything was done when I got home from work. Had my dad come out incase there were any questions my son wasn't sure about, but in the end, it was unnecessary. It's one of those things that creeps up on you - I didn't realize how bad the power supply had gotten. When I opened my son's door, I almost got knocked backward because the light was brighter. But the power is banging now - no sag when the furnace kicks in. I can turn the stereo on if the TV is on with no issues. Sa-weet!

dude, we're all happy that you have good power, but we really need to understand the impact on your tone :hello:

 

[alantig]

dude, we're all happy that you have good power, but we really need to understand the impact on your tone :hello:

Fired up an amp today for the first time since the work was done, and the tone was...BETTER. I was surprised - I had sustain like crazy. Same setup I've been using, but there was something MORE there. Tremonti -> Tone Bone Hot British -> Archon clean channel and Tremonti -> Archon. Suh. Weet.

Too bad my fingers didn't live up to the tone.

 

[watelessness]

Fired up an amp today for the first time since the work was done, and the tone was...BETTER. I was surprised - I had sustain like crazy. Same setup I've been using, but there was something MORE there. Tremonti -> Tone Bone Hot British -> Archon clean channel and Tremonti -> Archon. Suh. Weet.

Too bad my fingers didn't live up to the tone.

you had me at Archon. We really need an emoticon for that...