Damndest Thing...

[Squishy 1,149]

Out of the blue late today I loose power to different parts of my house. Master bedroom, a bath, foyer, part of the kitchen, washer & dryer. It does appear that each of these have their own breakers so I checked, none tripped. Reset them all anyway....no joy.

 

I do have a couple of wall outlets where one works, the other doesn't, been like this for a while. I just thought the outlets needed to be replaced.

 

I won't be off again til Saturday so even if I did call an electrician it would have to be a week from now. And I'm not real keen on spending that money if I don't have to. Did some Googling and aside from all sorts of trouble shooting routines I did see a similar situation that turned out to be power company related. And they did replace the "pad" my house is connected to about a month ago.

 

Any ideas?

[LuPiN8oR 333]

Buy a new main breaker they aren't that expensive, i had the same issue two months ago after a t storm. The main breaker wasnt totally shot but it was on the fritz and killed power to the master bedroom and on a completely different breaker the guest bath. Other than that get new outlets for the outlets that were an issue beforehand.

[Redrum4u 125]

You most likely lost a "leg" on your incoming line. Call your local power company.

[Squishy 1,149]

Btw, I don't think there is a single ground fault outlet in this house, that was one thing that came up in the research. I'd want to get up to speed with testing breakers and such, saw instances where people started replacing breakers and it didn't solve the problem. FWIW I did throw the main, left if off a while and threw it back, no change.

 

Called the PoCo, they're going to come out and take a look.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Squishy

[Lone Eagle 839]

Definitely sounds like you lost one leg. The contacts inside the breaker can(and will) corrode over time.

[Long Shot 1,287]

Agree you lost one leg of the 220 so the circuits fed from the live leg still have power. I'll bet nothing that runs on 220 is working correctly ie. water heater, range, central air you already mentioned the dryer.

 

Be a good idea to shut off the 220 breakers now!

 

It's probably going to be a bad connection at the main breaker or the meter itself. Could also be the main breaker itself. Some times one half of a 220 breaker will go bad but the other will still close.

 

If you have a tester you can pull the face off the panel and check each power feed to main one at a time to ground should give you 110~120. Then across both hot feeds to the main should give you 220~240. If that's good check each power buss the same way. If it coming into to the main good but not at the buss in the panel replace the main.

[Voltia 375]

And BE CAREFUL doing that. Good way to die.

[JESS1344 508]

SQUISHY,

YOU DON'T HAVE ONE OF THOSE NEW "SMART METERS", DO YOU?

 

JESS1344

[Long Shot 1,287]

And BE CAREFUL doing that. Good way to die.

I guess I forgot mention don't lick your fingers and touch the shiny parts inside the box.

 

I figured squish has enough on the ball not to do that. hehe.

[Squishy 1,149]

Got up this AM, everything is working again. Power company called, they checked everything out outside the house and it was all good, everything normal.

 

So it must be something inside, most likely a breaker or breakers.

 

I'm not going to mess with it, going to call an electrician. I'll advise how it turns out.

 

Oh, and no smart meter to my knowledge.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Squishy

[jerry52 893]

Check your ground connection to the main breakers outside down here it is clamped to a ground rod and they can come loose and also see if all the neutrals (white) are not mixed with the ground (bare copper) . Check all connections Hot (black on breakers), ground and neutrals. If you cook with electric and the stove comes on it is not the main power legs.

Good Luck and be safe

[Ronin38 2,117]

So the power company called and said everything's fine, and now all your stuff is working properly?

 

Sounds to me like the power company fixed the issue and don't want to admit to it...

 

I had that happen many times with internet lines to my last company's branch offices. The line would go down, we'd try everything on our end to fix it with no luck. Then I'd call the provider- he says, "Let me check" followed by sounds of him typing furiously, then he says, "No, we don't see any problems." Then I check our line and it's all good...

[Squishy 1,149]

Sounds to me like the power company fixed the issue and don't want to admit to it...

 

This was exactly what I thought at first. I'm going to throw the main before I go to work and then turn it back on when I get home. Not much in the reefer and it should hold some cold. Going to keep an eye on it but I'd feel better knowing nothing is hot while I'm gone. If it happens again while I'm here I'll move forward with a diagnostic.

[gunman1 1,753]

After I completely rewired my house, which it needed anyway 1948 vintage, we found one of the leg's kept coming loose from the main power line, it would come loose the eventually arc and weld itself back together. The power company found it when they replaced my service connection to the house, they missed it twice when I called in to complain. I would get orange light out of my 60 watt bulbs, and no power at all in some areas, and it would come and go.

 

 

To add this:

 

Turning on one of the electric stove burners would cause the loose leg to arc and weld itself back to the main line.

Edited September 10, 2013 by AA re-cvrd

[SouthernOne 203]

+1 ^^ I had one leg of my line connection come loose like thst. Was watching TV and a solid bar with buzz came across the screen. Traced it to the lug coming loose at the entrance panel.

Edited September 11, 2013 by SouthernOne

[sgt1146 7]

It sounds more like you have a house that is wired like mine. Early 1900's updated in the 70's. Balloon construction. Does any of your power outlets use the speed connectors in the back of the receptacle or do they use the actual screw terminals. The speed plugs in the back have a tendency to work loose over time if you where to walk into a room the foot vibration would cause lights to flicker. Now if you have your lines run in series ( one followed right after the other ie: daisy chained)and one of the receptacles come loose it could affect outlets and fixtures in other rooms. Usually rooms hooked like that are either back to back or over/under each other.

[Squishy 1,149]

It sounds more like you have a house that is wired like mine. Early 1900's updated in the 70's. Balloon construction. Does any of your power outlets use the speed connectors in the back of the receptacle or do they use the actual screw terminals. The speed plugs in the back have a tendency to work loose over time if you where to walk into a room the foot vibration would cause lights to flicker. Now if you have your lines run in series ( one followed right after the other ie: daisy chained)and one of the receptacles come loose it could affect outlets and fixtures in other rooms. Usually rooms hooked like that are either back to back or over/under each other.

 

Thanks for asking and, the input. When I arrived home from work at around 5:30 I threw the main and so far everything is running normally. I'm off Saturday so I'm going to go get some new receptacles and do some replacing. Til then I'll do what I did today, throw the main on the way out the door to work and turn everything on when I get back. If I see what happened last night again between now and then I'll get someone to come and check all the breakers and the main. I could probably figure out how to do it myself but this is too important and I don't need to be frying my old ass messing with the breakers trying to save money.

 

I still suspect the PoCo did actually do something but don't want to admit it and figure that if the problem is fixed, it's all good.