I'm used to power outages, which usually are measured in hours at the worst, but last night I lost half my power. In other words, half of my house as well as half of 8 of my neighbor's homes lost power. The local news is saying there are over 432 thousand people in the area without power, so the prospect of the local utility company coming out to fix our problem is probably several days to a week away.
Effected portions of my house included my furnace, refrigerator, several lights and my computer/modem. Having one leg of power doesn't warrant digging out the generator and spending the money for gas to run it, IMHO. My work around was to move my breakers around to the hot leg of the panel so the needed items now have power. Part of this breaker swap means my dog will have to do his business in the dark, as the outside lights were one of the victims sacrificed to restore my cable modem. Maybe I'll give him a flashlight.
Over the time I have lived here, more than 40 years, I have seen to really weird electrical problems. One New Year's day saw a ice laden tree split in half and rip the wires off my house. Climbing an ice covered roof to reattach live lines is not for the feint hearted nor inexperienced homeowner. I was neither and wearing insulated gloves and salting the roof around the electrical header, I reattached the power lines. A month later, Edison came out to do the repair. The guys looked it over, told me "Good Job" and went on their way. A few years ago, on a sunny summer day, our neighborhood lost the neutral connection. That weird occurrence meant 120 volt items worked but not 240 volt such as air conditioners and electric stoves/driers/water heaters. That one had the utility boys stumped for a while and I never did find out the exact cause.
Then we had the Great Blackout of 2003 where 50 million people in SE Michigan, 7 other states and Canada lost power for as long as three days. All caused by a tree limb touching power lines and causing a short.
What's your favorite or worse power loss story?
Effected portions of my house included my furnace, refrigerator, several lights and my computer/modem. Having one leg of power doesn't warrant digging out the generator and spending the money for gas to run it, IMHO. My work around was to move my breakers around to the hot leg of the panel so the needed items now have power. Part of this breaker swap means my dog will have to do his business in the dark, as the outside lights were one of the victims sacrificed to restore my cable modem. Maybe I'll give him a flashlight.
Over the time I have lived here, more than 40 years, I have seen to really weird electrical problems. One New Year's day saw a ice laden tree split in half and rip the wires off my house. Climbing an ice covered roof to reattach live lines is not for the feint hearted nor inexperienced homeowner. I was neither and wearing insulated gloves and salting the roof around the electrical header, I reattached the power lines. A month later, Edison came out to do the repair. The guys looked it over, told me "Good Job" and went on their way. A few years ago, on a sunny summer day, our neighborhood lost the neutral connection. That weird occurrence meant 120 volt items worked but not 240 volt such as air conditioners and electric stoves/driers/water heaters. That one had the utility boys stumped for a while and I never did find out the exact cause.
Then we had the Great Blackout of 2003 where 50 million people in SE Michigan, 7 other states and Canada lost power for as long as three days. All caused by a tree limb touching power lines and causing a short.
What's your favorite or worse power loss story?
...Ben
