Weird Power Outage

[arjay]

We’ve had some weird ones here with all the trees. One year my mother in law was staying with us and just as she got up from her chair on the patio and was walking in the back door the power line tore loose from the pole and slammed into the house right beside her! At least it was during the day in the summer lol
The following summer the toaster caught fire,I grabbed it and just as I tossed it out the back door here comes Angie trying to come in.
She was always calm under pressure (unlike her daughter) I miss her

 

[Rustyt1953]

I posted this two years ago.

"It was a hot, humid, stormy night in the summer of '69. With no air conditioning all the house windows were open. I was sleeping fitfully and heard dad get up and shuffle to the bathroom which was across the hall from my and my brother's bedroom.

We were jolted out of bed by a deafening bang followed by a Wilhelm scream. Dad was at parade rest taking care of business when lightning hit the downspout next to the bathroom window. It blew out the fuse for the upstairs and caught the bathroom curtain on fire.

Dad pulled the curtain down and threw it in the tub. Mom handed me a flashlight and I went downstairs and replaced the fuse in the basement. Mom yelled down for me to bring the mop when I came back upstairs.


Quite the night."

 

[djohns6]

Call whatever you want. I was here, I lived it. It helps to be an electrician as opposed to someone who can't put batteries in a flashlight. Been playing with electrons for more than 55 years.

Retired power company Maintenance Foreman . I can filter the BS .

 

[ladder13]

My Generac works perfect.

Ditto

 

[Golddollar]

My Generac works perfect.

After reading all these stories I think I'll go out and give my Generac generator a big hug.

 

[pharmer]

I’ve been in the center of “Hurricane Alley” 43 years. Power been off maybe 5-6 times. Once defrosted my mom’s deep freeze back in the ‘80’s, another time overnite. I cooked pasta and shrimp with a pot of coffee another time. 43 years and maybe 48 hours total outage. Underground utilities is the key. Joe

 

[Tom S.]

Retired power company Maintenance Foreman . I can filter the BS .

Obviously not well enough.

 

[swsig]

Mine was the Great Texas Power Grid Failure of 2021. Texas' vaunted, free-market, not-connected-to-the-rest-of-the-US system, failed miserably. The geniuses that ran and supervised the system figured that it was OK to maintain it to meet only best-case scenario standards. When a massive, worst-case ice storm and below-zero temperatures hit most of the state, the grid had to go to rotating blackouts for three days to prevent its total collapse. Hundreds of Texans died of hypothermia in their own homes, as some parts of the state had no power for those three days. We were lucky, as we had power 30 minutes out of every hour. The exception was the second and coldest night (minus 6 degrees), where we had no power for three hours. The temperature in our bedroom was 40 degrees. Fortunately, our living room's gas fireplace worked continuously during all of this, so we spent most of those days bundled up huddling in front of it.

Texas government officials were outraged and promised to take drastic action. Their solution was to slap a surcharge on the power bills of Texas consumers so they could underwrite the expenses that the power companies would have in properly winterizing their systems. Heaven forbid that the power companies' stockholders should have to bear any of these costs. An example of Corporate Socialism at its finest!

My solution is this:

A 20 KW Cummins.

 

[LVSteve]

I can only guess how the power company has your street wired so that only half the house goes out. Did they increased the capacity of each home by giving them two separate feeds and that the breaker panel has two halves each with one feed? Lose one feed, and half the house is out.

The bit in the OP I really cannot understand is "swapping the breakers" to get what you need. I don't think the panel on this house (built 1994) lets you do that.

 

[JohnRippert]

Mine was the Great Texas Power Grid Failure of 2021. Texas vaunted, free-market, not-connected-to-the-rest-of-the-US system, failed miserably. The geniuses that ran and supervised the system figured that it was OK to maintain it to meet best-case scenario standards. When a massive, worst-case ice storm and below-zero temperatures hit most of the state, the grid had to go to rotating blackouts for three days to prevent its total collapse. Hundreds of Texans died of hypothermia in their own homes, as some parts of the state had no power for those three days. We were lucky, as we had power 30 minutes out of every hour. The exception was the second and coldest night (minus 6 degrees), where we had no power for three hours. The temperature in our bedroom was 40 degrees. Fortunately, our living room's gas fireplace worked continuously during all of this, so we spent most of those days bundled up huddling in front of it.

Texas government officials were outraged and promised to take drastic action. Their solution was to slap a surcharge on the power bills of Texas consumers so they could underwrite the expenses that the power companies would have in properly winterizing their systems. Heaven forbid that the power companies' stockholders should have to bear any of these costs. An example of Corporate Socialism at its finest!

My solution is this:

A 20 KW Cummins.

Not sure what was connected to our part of the grid that was not allowed to go without power because we never lost power during that whole episode. We live between Houston and Sugar Land.


We did go without power for about a week after one of the hurricanes. It was not a particularly bad one either, for wind and rain. Luckily it was in early September and the temps stayed below 90 for most of the week. We and the neighbors all fed each other on the stuff in our freezers for a few days. Thanks to a Old Smokey and a Coleman stove there was no issues with cooking.


Have given thought to a Generac system and maybe we will somewhere down the line. Some foundation work is next on our home upkeep list.

 

[swsig]

Not sure what was connected to our part of the grid that was not allowed to go without power because we never lost power during that whole episode. We live between Houston and Sugar Land.

It could depend on your neighborhood location. A friend of mine who lived 10 miles away never lost power because his home was on the same circuit as a nearby fire station. So if you have an emergency facility nearby, that might explain it. Or maybe you just got lucky.

 

[glenwolde]

 

[llowry61]

Endured 2 power outages, one that lasted 6 day - blizzard of 78 or 9 can't recall, then the same storm Ivan referenced we were down for 4 days.

We lived in a house when I first got married that had 2 separate feeds to the fuse box for some reason. We had the same issue where some things worked, and some didn't. I was not even going to call the power company assuming it was inside and our issue. My wife called them and they came out did something on one of the poles and the guy told me we had lost one phase, not sure exactly what he meant but assumed it was a half the fuse box. This was an old tract house, built post war with screw in fuses. I was always scared to death we were going to burn the place down trying to run a modern household with that 50's power set up. If I remember correctly it may have only been 100 amp service.

 

[Muley Gil]

On June 29, 2012, a derecho hit the Appalachian mountains. My old farmhouse was wired for three generator lines; one in the living room, one in the kitchen and one in the basement. I was able to keep the refrigerator running and had lights, TV and the computer in the living room. At night, had a fan in the bedroom. No water, as the well pump was 220V. I took my truck down to the creek and filled buckets to flush the toilet. I bought bottled water for coffee.

Luckily, in 2010, I bought a 5000W Champion generator from Tractor Supply. It ran for 7 days straight during the derecho before the power came back on. That generator was one of the best investments I've ever made. I've since had the breaker box modified so that I can run most of the circuits in the house-including the well, with no chance of back feeding power.

In a way, I was lucky. Some folks had their power out for 10 days and a lot of them lost everything in the refrigerators and freezers.

 

[Tom S.]

I can only guess how the power company has your street wired so that only half the house goes out. Did they increased the capacity of each home by giving them two separate feeds and that the breaker panel has two halves each with one feed? Lose one feed, and half the house is out.

The bit in the OP I really cannot understand is "swapping the breakers" to get what you need. I don't think the panel on this house (built 1994) lets you do that.

Every house has two 120v lines and a neutral. My guess is when the tree fell on the lines, it shorted out one of the lines, or it may have physically separated one line's connection. Transformers have fuses for each line and if the line shorted, the fuse should have blown for that line segment. Or as I stated, the strain of the weight on the line physically pulled the line connection apart. End result of either situation is only one of the 120 volt lines to our homes has power, the other is dead.

Since half of my electrical panel was dead while the other half was still hot, I swapped the two breakers that supplied power to my fridge and furnace into spots that were still hot. It would have been nice if my panel had open spots but it full so I had to pull two breakers that were on the hot side to move the furnace/refrig breakers into. The breakers I pulled controlled power to the back yard lights/outside outlets and part of my garage. I lost use of my garage door opener, but was able to run an extension cord to it from an outlet that still had power.

I hope that clears it up for you. Losing the one leg means that none of my 240 volt equipment works, so no stove, no air conditioning and no welding or air compressor. 240V equipment needs two 120v lines to operate. Since it's 26 degrees, a/c is no loss, and I still have my propane grill to fall back on for cooking.

Power company was out yesterday. It seems the stress of tree cracked a pole in the NW corner of my property, a cross pole that has a boat load of wires, including fiber optics for the cable company. The plan is to replace the pole today before removing the tree which seems kind of odd to me but that stuff is out of my wheelhouse. The pole was slated to be replaced anyway as they have been replacing several poles in our area in the past 6 months including one across the street last week. Some of these poles have to be 70 years old as they still had climbing cleats on them, something the utility companies stopped using in the 50's I believe.

Ironically, the only piece of mail I got yesterday was my electric bill. I wonder if they'll accept half payment since I only have half power?

 

[chief38]

I too have a Generac 22K whole house stand-bye generator. We lost power for two days during the recent hurricane in Florida (Sept.) and it worked like a charm.

BTW, if you loose power only on one leg of the panel, you CAN shut the entire panel off manually and the generator will kick on. You will have to check periodically by shutting off the generator and testing to see if your leg came back on.

 

[Tom S.]

I too have a Generac 22K whole house stand-bye generator. We lost power for two days during the recent hurricane in Florida (Sept.) and it worked like a charm.

BTW, if you loose power only on one leg of the panel, you CAN shut the entire panel off manually and the generator will kick on. You will have to check periodically by shutting off the generator and testing to see if your leg came back on.

You can do the same in the event of under-voltage. Newer Generacs will do this automatically but some of the older units don't. Under-power is dangerous as bigwheelzip can tell you. Not only can it mess with sensitive electronics, it can cause motors to burn out.

Although I install whole house generators, I never saw the need to expend the money for one. I do have a 6K portable (if you are iron man contestant) for emergency use but in 20+ years have only used it 3 or 4 times. On the other hand, some of my customers lose power regularly, often for days at a time. If I was in that category, I would have put one in years ago. I would also have one if I or a family member was dependent on medical equipment. I was going to install one when we thought my daughter would be doing home dialysis but that never came to be.

Here's a picture of the 'problem'. I'm not sure if the line with the red arrow is the line carrying the power I'm 'missing' or not. It's private property and I'm not that curious to find out! The remaining lines can be seen above the single line.

EDIT to add picture of the collateral damage done to the pole in my yard. Odd thing is, the power company said this pole was going to be replaced more than 10 years ago. Well it certainly will be now!

 

[oldbrownhat]

E
Power company was out yesterday....The plan is to replace the pole today before removing the tree which seems kind of odd to me but that stuff is out of my wheelhouse...

Ironically, the only piece of mail I got yesterday was my electric bill. I wonder if they'll accept half payment since I only have half power?

When we had the ice storm which knocked out power for 84 hours, my elderly neighbor up the street was w/o power for over 10 days aside from a small utillity generator because a tree in his yard had taken down the line from the road to his house. The hydro utility is only responsible for repairing the lines out at the road, so he had to find an electrician to run a new line about 100' to the house. Finding an electrician during a major power outage is hard enough, but in addition, he had to find one who could install an intermediary pole on his property because the electrical code had changed since the house was wired up many decades ago and the length of an unsupported run had been shortened.

Fortunately he and his wife are pretty tough and they got though it OK, but that spring he had a few trees cut back to prevent a repeat. I had a similar length run to my old house and never had a problem, but when I built the new house here I had a pole put in at the gate and the utilities trenched in from the road.

 

[twodog max]

We once had a similar problem with only half our house working. Called an electrician and he said it was the power companies problem. Turns out it was. It was cold weather and at night the cold would make one of the the connections at the transformer contract and break the connection. When the sun warmed things up it started working again. The power company came out installed a longer connection and the problem was solved.

 

[Tom S.]

When we had the ice storm which knocked out power for 84 hours, my elderly neighbor up the street was w/o power for over 10 days aside from a small utillity generator because a tree in his yard had taken down the line from the road to his house. The hydro utility is only responsible for repairing the lines out at the road, so he had to find an electrician to run a new line about 100' to the house. Finding an electrician during a major power outage is hard enough, but in addition, he had to find one who could install an intermediary pole on his property because the electrical code had changed since the house was wired up many decades ago and the length of an unsupported run had been shortened.

Fortunately he and his wife are pretty tough and they got though it OK, but that spring he had a few trees cut back to prevent a repeat. I had a similar length run to my old house and never had a problem, but when I built the new house here I had a pole put in at the gate and the utilities trenched in from the road.

You did the right thing, IMHO. Your neighbor should have considered the option of burying the cable instead of putting in another pole, but this advice is coming from someone with access to a backhoe.