This morning parts of my house electric system shut down suddenly. None of the breakers were tripped (I flipped them all off and back on to be sure), I wasn’t running anything out of the ordinary.
Two weird things:
One, the outages aren’t confined to any single “zone.” One of the outlets along the kitchen counter is working, the other isn’t - the light and stove are also out. One of the outlets in the bedroom is working, the one on the opposite wall isn’t, but the overhead light is out. Ditto the office/second bedroom, one outlet working, the other not. Everything operational in the living room. Mudroom light is out, but the outlets still work. When a breaker gets tripped, seems like it’s all clustered together in a single area, right?
Two, and I don’t see how this can be related but the coincidence is too weird - at the exact instant the power went out, two of the dogs were by the back door and one of them yelped. There’s no outlets or wires there, but there is an outdoor floodlight; too high for either dog to touch in any way (it’s also out.) Seonds later, both dogs were acting normal.
It’s a 50-year-old house with some old, some new, wiring - I had an electrician go through the electrical system, fix and update a few things, when I bought the house last year. I’m pretty handy but I don’t touch electrical or natural gas systems, beyond the most basic of tasks like replacing a switch. So I’m pretty clueless.
Contractor friend is sending his electrician over tomorrow afternoon - I can make do until then and major stuff like the fridge and freezer, fan for central heat, etc is all working fine. Any guesses from more savvy Dopers? I’m crossing my fingers that this isn’t going to be something really spendy, this is so not a good time for that.
And why did one of the dogs yelp at the instant the power went screwy? That’s the oddest thing.
It sounds like perhaps you lost a phase, perhaps at the transformer that supplies your house (any neighbors having similar problems?) or at the meter, or even at the main panel lugs. This can be something as simple as a loose connection. Poor or non-existent grounding can also wreak havoc on electrical circuits. As you say, normally areas of the house are grouped on the same breaker for convenience, but it’s not required by code. Lighting and outlet circuits are generally not on the same breaker, but that’s not hard and fast, either. I’d say the dog yelp is a coincidence, but you might check to see if there is an exposed grounding conductor outside by the meter that looks chewed. Doubtful that a dog could bite through a wire that thick, though.
I’m going to go with Chefguy on this. It sounds like you lost a phase. As for the dogs barking, my guess would be that if you lost it at the transformer, depending on what happened, it may have spooked the dogs. It can be pretty bright it, for example, an animal shorted the lugs.
Did you check all the breakers? Including the main ones?
The next step would be to check the voltage coming into the house with a voltage detector.
Most houses (in the U.S. at least) are wired from a split single phase. What this means is that you have what is called a center tapped transformer attached to the distribution line. A single transformer typically feeds more than one house (two or three, maybe four). The center tap of the transformer is grounded. Each end of the transformer winding then becomes your two “hot” lines. From either line to ground you get 120 volts. From one line to the other you get 240 volts. The “ground” connection becomes your “neutral” connection. So you end up with two hots and one neutral.
In your fuse panel or breaker box, if you need a 120 volt circuit, you connect one wire to either hot and the other wire to the neutral. If you need a 240 volt circuit, your two wires go to both hots. The hots will be black wires but may also be red wires (typically a 240 circuit will have one black wire and one red wire to indicate the two hots) and the neutral wires will be white. A modern house will have a third green wire which is used as a protective ground. It gets connected to the neutral at the ffuse/breaker box and carries no current. To balance out the load, about half of your 120 volt stuff will be connected to one hot and about half of it will be connected to the other hot. Your 240 volt loads like your dryer and stove (if it is electric) connect to both hots.
If you lose a small number of outlets, you’ve probably had a fault on one circuit. If you lose a whole bunch of stuff, it usually indicates that you lost a major feed, so either you lost one of the hots somewhere or the neutral broke somewhere. The problem could be anywhere between the transformer outside and the fuse/breaker box. It could be that the transformer went bad, which would affect your neighbors on the same transformer, or you could have a fault in the wires between the transformer and your house, in which case your neighbors would be unaffected. It could even be in the distribution line, which would affect your entire neighborhood.
There could be a problem at the meter, which may or may not be the meter itself (the base it sits in could go bad). There could be a problem in the wiring between the meter and the fuse/breaker box. There could also be a problem inside the fuse/breaker box such as a broken hot or neutral connection. This would probably be one of the worst cases from a cost standpoint. It could also be a bad main breaker, which would be fairly cheap compared to many of the other alternatives.
Best case you are looking at under $10 in parts plus the electrician’s time. Worst case is you’d have to replace the breaker box which would be pretty darn expensive.
Ah! I haven’t asked any of my neighbors, but I can. There is a close-by transformer. The meter and main wires aren’t accessible to the dogs, though. They’re on the other side of the house outside of the fence. Should I call my power company, then? Just in case it’s not something actually within my walls? It would be cool if it was a Consumer’s Power issue and not even my responsibility.
I did check (turned on and off) all the breakers, including the main. They were all at normal position but I did it anyway because it’s the only thing I know to do, actually.
I don’t own a voltage detector - that’s the little device that you plug into outlets that tells you if the incoming voltage is within normal ranges, right?
engineer_comp_geek, thanks to you also - neighbors at the end of the road are fine, next door neighbors are at work and not answering phone, just texted other neighbor. I live in a semi-rural-ish neighborhood and homes are sort of spaced out.
The meter is new - they put it in after I bought the house last year; it’s a digital one the meter reader can read from the road.
Neighbor across the street says everything normal on his end, he just texted me back.
A voltage detector. They work through the insulation of wires. There are several brands. I have a GB Instruments GVD-505A, less than $15 at Home Depot. Touch it to a hot wire, and the end glows red. Find the doodad that lights it on one side, and not the other, and you have the culprit. You do not have to open up housings and expose electrical contacts. You are looking at where your hand is, not where the meter is.
You do have a main breaker? I have encountered 2 houses and a church where one of the main fuses blew. The second time it happened, the guy though I was a genius because had the problem fixed in minutes once I got him to shut up and show me where the box was. the church required waiting until morning and finding a place that stocked an old enough style 250 amp fuse.
A voltage detector would enable you check your incoming service if you can get at it. Both coated wires should light up the detector. So should both sides of a main breaker and the buss bars and circuit breakers. If one of the incoming wires is dead, call the power company. Hot there and dead at the main breaker? Anywere from the meter base to the main breaker.
Gotta go with Chefguy. Sounds very much like you lost a phase. Like others have already said, either at the main distribution center (AKA breaker box), the meter or trim (where the wires come in to the house), or at the local transformer.
Should be a relatively easy fix, but depending on parts could run a couple hundred, if said parts are hard to find.
if you lost a phase connection then 220V devices wouldn’t work and alternating circuit breakers wouldn’t have voltage. the electrician can scope this out quickly.
if the fault is a connection between the power transformer and your house (before the meter) then that is something the utility will fix at no cost to you. this type of thing is not unusual.
if the problem is in your house then it could be tightening a connection, replacing a main breaker or replacing the breaker box. it all depends on the make and model of your breaker box for costs if you need replacements.
It wouldn’t be a short, but it could have made an arcing noise. I’m wondering if there was perhaps a transient voltage surge that aggravated an already iffy connection.
Oh with 240 things get weird, or at least with the comon heating elements. Power flows from the hot leg through the the heating element and back to the unpowered buss. Then it can seek ground through any circuit in use giving them a low voltage. Simple things such as incandescent lights glow dimly. More complex things are less predictible when limited to a lower voltage. So you have all the 120 stuff on one leg working normally. The 240 stuff and 120 on the other leg are opperating on low voltage and who knows how they will react to it.
So call an electrician, the power company, or get a voltage detector and figure out where you have lost a phase.
I wouldn’t rule out a grounding issue, either. I worked on problems where lights would light off one three way switch, then glow dimly when it’s partner across the room should have turned them off. I was a young electrician at that time, and worked on that damned problem for several hours before throwing in the towel and calling our shop super, who came out, looked at the main panel and said: “drive a ground rod here”. We did, ran a piece of #6 to it from the panel and voila!: problem solved.
Corroded wiring from the meter where it comes into my house. He said I’d had a “leg/phase” out because the wiring there was old. He replaced wires and connections in my crawl space and everything works now. And not too spendy. I got nervous about some of the costs I was finding online.
I actually went out and bought a voltage detector before the electrician came by, but it had absolutely no useful directions; they assumed the user had rudimentary knowledge, which I don’t. So I have an unused Ace Hardware voltage detector now and maybe I’ll find someone to show me how to use it. (I’m too leery about electrical stuff to try figuring it out by watching You Tube videos.)
