Advice, remarks, on my electricial problem?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I live in a house built in 1948.
Two nights ago, I installed a 7000 BTU window unit air conditioner by Sharp in my upstairs window.
The unit ran nicely for a few hours.
My fiancee came home, we had dinner, everything was great…
Then the lights went out.
The lights in the following parts of the house no worky:
garage
bedrooms on 2nd and 3rd floors
one of the outlets in the living room
entire 3rd floor

So, give or take, half of the house.
I tried resetting the breakers (none of which were tripped) and no improvement.

I’ve got an electrician arriving in a little bit.
What should I expect?

#2

Another breaker box somewhere? My house has 4, 3 in the basement and one in the laundry room.

We had an old 1920’s house and experienced a similar problem and could not fix it. Turns out there was another fusebox, on the back of the house, painted shut.

#3

And, he got here early.
Answer is corrosion in the box outside of the house.

#4

Sounds like something was marginal outside. I’m guessing you had a loose and corroded connection at the meter “can” or main breaker, depending on what’s in that outside box, and the extra draw of the air conditioner was just enough to push it into complete failure.

You’re fortunate that it was outside and that it happened after just a few hours - my first thoughts were that you’d burned out a shared neutral somewhere in the house, which could have been disastrous. The fire tends to ruin anything that wasn’t already blown out. :eek:

#5

gotpasswords’ answer is, in fact, exactly what the electrician said.

#6

Can I ask a question along the lines of house wiring?

If I have a cut on a finger and touch the water in a metal pan on my stove burner, I got a low level shock. It’s enough to make you pull you hand back and I don’t get it without an open wound.

I thought it was my stove (electric burner, stainless steel pot), then noticed that I also get shocked by water in my stainless steel sink about 4 feet away. So, I disconnected the stove and haven’t bought a replacement. The shock stopped at that point.

Since then, I’d been using a ‘hot plate’ and had no problem until yesterday when I got shocked again on the metal pan. The hot plate is plugged into a different outlet (110 vs the 220 for the stove). The 220 breaker has not been turned back on. So that line should still be dead.

Is there something that can be done to somehow make the electric wiring cause stove burners to carry a charge?

Also, for the water, it is only the kitchen sink water that shocked me. No other water has that effect. No other water in my house is held in stainless steal container. I have well water and and the pipes are all plastic. Is there some sort of chemical reaction that can be happening with stainless steel as an electrode? Like when you put silver in water with tin foil?

#7

Not in this thread.
I’ve opened a thread for you:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=15394875