Having electrical issues at the home and I am looking for advice since I’m not certain of the cause.
So I had a tree fail onto my in coming electric line and it didn’t take the power out, but did bend the pole on my house and looks to have stretched the line and frayed. I had no issues so I waited to call someone as it wasn’t an emergency since others were totally without power. Noiw I am having issues inside the house and I suspect that they are related. I losing power to differnt, unrelated circuits in the house and the breakers are not going out. Is it possible that I am having low voltage issues due to the incoming line being damaged? Is there a specific kind of electrician I should call for outside line work?
The line to the house is generally covered by the electric company.
Once it touches the house, the line to the meter and everything else is yours.
So if this is the line to the house, call the electric company to come check it out.
If the line is past the point of first touching the house, any licensed electrician doing work on houses should be up to the job. Their pricing will probably vary greatly as will their quality. So ask around for a recommendation.
If you were in my area, I would have one for you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not central Jersey.
Don’t use Angie’s List (now Angi) or HomeAdvisor; they’re pretty terrible and usually the most expensive contractors.
The electric company came out and told me that the pole on my house (the one bent) is my responsibilty to get fixed. The actual line between their pole and my house pole should be their responsibility, but we did didn’t get into that detail. I can tell that it is thinner and that indivdual lines are frayed, so I suspect its causeing low voltage issues in the house.
One of the best places to look is on local Facebook groups or even the dreaded Nextdoor. If you find a public group for your area, do a search for Electricians. Definitely try to click through to the electrician’s FB and/or web sites. If they do work on outside lines, it should say somewhere on their site.
I just got home from meeting with an electrician at my house. Phone lines (remember those!) had come down off the pole, the phone company fixed the pole and the lines going to my neighbor’s house and left the lines going from my house to the pole, just laying in the yard, because they said the lines weren’t theirs.
I found a local electrician by the method I described, saw on their site that they do “exterior electrical” (as well as interior), and called to explain my problem. They sent a guy over today who hopped right up on the roof, undid all the phone wiring, and carried the wire away for me. He even took the time to trim the tree that he thought was too close to my electric line. 30 mins for the whole thing.
So yeah just look for someone who does exterior work, they should be able to fix you up.
The pole on your house would be yours. That is the terminus. So that will be a pain.
If the problem was the actual connection between their wire and yours, they should do that, but I can see them objecting to doing so until the pole is fixed.
I just did the NextDoor group and they came back with the same people I had replace my water heater and AC unit with last year. Was very pleased with their work and professionalism. I did not know that they did electrical line work, but it makes sense that they would.
Yes, it does look like it could be a pain since its actually attached to the structural part of the house. And because I have siding I cannot tell if it damaged the connection to the house. Most everyone says that electric companies property starts above the meter, forgetting that the riser above the meter is attached to the home and is the homeowners resposnsibilty.
Just for reference, I believe the pole is called a mast, and the curved bit at the top where the wires come in is the weatherhead. If you tell the electricians you need them to check and see if your weatherhead is damaged, they’ll probably assume you mean the whole mast and weatherhead assembly.
Similar to you, I had a tree branch fall on the lines to my house, and it pulled the mast off the house so it was leaning out at an odd angle. There was no question that there was damage. Later, a whole trunk from that tree fell on the lines, but the new mast was attached securely, and wasn’t damaged, even though the weight on the wire was enough to bend the two telephone poles at the corners of my yard and cause the high voltage lines to drop a foot or so.
The point being, the mast might not have been damaged.
Unrelated to those incidents, we were getting intermittent low voltage on some circuits, and the power company determined it was because one of the connections from the feed lines to the house was not torqued properly in our power meter cabinet. They also said the wires to our house were a bit frayed, probably from trees falling on it, but that it wasn’t a safety issue, and if re-torquing the feed lines fixed the problem, not to worry about the lines to the house. It did fix the problem.
The point being, you should have the power company check the wires and all of their connections, but at the distribution lines and in your power meter box. If all of that is good, then hire an electrician to check everything else.
Here is what I am looking at. That mast used to be straight up like the one sext to it. (that needs removed)
The stress on the wires could possibly have pulled a panel connection loose, which would mean you’re getting intermittent arcing, which could cause the problems you speaking about.
Likely not the house panel, but I could see the meter itself having its connections streched loose.
