Waiting for the PoCo

[Jagmandave]

I was eating breakfast and reading the local bird cage liner when the lights began to flicker a bit, then they were OK, then flicker again, till they finally went out. At first I thought it might just be the kitchen lights switch or something, then I noticed most of the other kitchen things were off too. "Breaker tripped" I thought, and sure enough there was one tripped, but it was for the dishwasher and garbage disposal and resetting it did nothing for the lights of course. Hmmmm.....

I started trying various and sundry other lights and found quite a few dead thru out the house, and others that still worked......so a thought began to form.

I went and got my little meter and took the cover plate off the breaker box and got nothing on either leg - well that can't be right, too many things are still on. So I went and got my industrial sized heavy duty Fluke and checked again.....AHA! One leg is dead coming into the panel main breaker.....that's why half the stuff is still working.

I called the PoCo, but of course you can't actually talk to a human being at any business anymore, so I navigated thru about 30 menu options in both Spanish and English and they confirmed my phone number and address......that was about an hour ago and I haven't heard anything since - of course the phone is out too so they can't call me anyway! The garage door openers are both dead, although I can open them manually - but my doors are solid wood panels so even with the helper springs Rose can't lift them and I don't want to leave them open all day, good thing it was her car that got left out last night instead of the MINI.

This side's good.....

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This side not so much....

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It's fortunate that the light I put in right above the fuse panel was tied in on the side that still had power. We've had several power outages this summer and I'm thinking we've got a bad transformer on the line somewhere. My understanding is that it's the Power Company's problem right up to and including the meter, after that it's mine. I hope it's on their side.....

Anyone ever have this happen before? Was it a bad leg from the transformer or something else? The service coming from the pole looks intact, there's no problem at the meter that I can see, and all that happens between the meter and the panel is the wire which has been there since the house was built in 1964, not much reason for it to fail......and it's a short run of about 6 feet or so.

I ran an extension cord to power up the modem and router so I'd have internet access, but the phone is out even with the power module plugged in, which is strange too.

More as it happens....

 

[Teken]

Dave,

I would probably air on the side of caution and turn off all the breakers. Than, shut down the main supply breaker in case the transformer is about to go **** up and cause a massive surge.

Teken . . .

 

[Gary S]

I had that happen some years ago. One of the two hot lines to my house had broken. Once they spliced it, all was working again.

 

[Jarcese]

I'm sure they will be out quicker than you think. If you really think it's going to be a while, then run an extension cord from working outlets to whatever needs to stay on.

Most likely an outside connection or a tree rubbed open the service, not the transformer. Connections burn out a lot more than people think they do. I'm guessing at the weather head.. Could be in the meter trough or where you tested, but most likely outside and shouldn't be your problem.

I regular person might have partial power happen a couple times in a lifetime, but we get probably 50 part off calls a day company wide, so it's not as rare or weird as homeowners think.

 

[Jagmandave]

Mystery solved.....

PoCo got here a little bit ago and when he went to cut the seal on the meter base, it sparked!

Ru-roh!

We've all heard the stories about aluminum wiring, and this was *this* close to a bad outcome. The wire that goes to my panel from the meter is only about a 6 ft run, and where it attaches to the clip that the meter plugs into it had burned in two. Good thing that the only things that run on 220V in my house are the A/C and the kitchen oven, and since today was a nice cool day neither was trying to run, or it could have been expensive.

He was able to cut the bad end off and strip enough wire off to make a good connection and said that nothing was damaged so I didn't need to replace either the wire or the meter base. A good coat of noalox on the wire and I'm back in bidness. While he had the power disconnected I went down and put a screwdriver to every connection in the panel, just to make sure....and I did find 2 that were about 1/2 turn loose, so that's a good thing too.

This is kind of a grey area between the homeowner and the PoCo, the meter base is sealed and we're not supposed to cut the seal (Plus I don't have the right protective gear if it was shorted) or pull the meter as we can incur all sorts of wrath and fines, but the base the meter sits in is the homeowners responsibility.

Bottom line, all's good now.

 

[Jarcese]

That was good of him to do that. Most guys will make meter trough repairs for people, but some guys will just leave and tell you to call an electrician.