So….big storm came through an hour or so back and power went out. Now ACs won’t come on, and fridges can’t seem to cycle on. All lights on both floors will come on……mostly……but will dim in and out. Nothing seems to be full power. Could it be the electricity coming from the grid/transformer…..or does it sound more like maybe the house got hit by lightning?
We had a big storm a few hours ago that had the power going on/off repeatedly in the whole neighborhood, I ended up turning ac off since I knew as the grid/area came on there'd be a surge/outage again while I was trying to sleep. Anyway, if the power is actually fully back on around you, I'd turn off AC at thermostat (let circulating fan stop if it's trying to work) then turn everything else off that you don't need running, and then flip the breakers all off and turn each slowly back on, like the main and everything off at main and sub panel, then turn main on followed by other bigger circuits to then the smaller ones. Then check to see if fridge/other lights are working properly. If they are, and power isn't all over the place flickering/odd surge - then turn the ac back on at thermostat. For example in a major storm I'll turn my AC off because I don't like the compressor continuing to try and cycle if it's continuing to surge/go out/no power. Like our power literally would go off for a few min to on/off repeatedly, and then stay on for a few min to off for hour+. Just be careful if it's raining a lot still or if lightning is really close, especially depending where the panels are (like if located outside in puddle of water). I'd start simple with this before looking for bigger issues. Assuming power is fully back, the controlled turning breakers back on might help. I know in the past I had a breaker doing some odd things like you're describing but it was due to it failing breaker from age/heat.
Verify that it is every circuit that is having problems and not half of them. Can you verify that your neighbors are not also affected and experiencing the same? Just to isolate the issue to your home. If it's just you, the issue is probably between your electrical panel and the utility pole. Maybe the storm loosened a neutral connection at the pole. Try CCity Zero's suggestion first. If issue persists,and assuming all connections are good in your panel, call the power company to check it out on their side.
If only the lights are working and they are dim, usually means power is basically out. Check the centerpoint website but I’ve had power out where lights sort of work and it was a neighborhood outage
Watt? I would offer advice free of charge, if I knew more. Agree with others to check locally first before contacting current utility provider. Stay vigilant and grounded, hope the dark hours of power issue subsides lightning fast.
Do you have a multimeter? If you do, and are comfortable working inside a live breaker box, check that you have 110v+ on each leg. If you have an electric dryer plug, you can check each leg to ground there. I'd watch my voltages for a bit to make sure they're holding steady. Don't kill yourself! If you don't know what is what, leave it alone and find someone who does. You can't diagnose this without reading live wires (barring some obvious fault/burn mark)
So…..been a LONG day! Centerpoint finally got a few other complaints (which was good….it wasn’t just us), and they expected it to be fixed by eight AM, then 9 AM, then 9:26 PM, and then back down to 2:16 PM. It was actually fixed around one PM. Before my post this morning, I had already had enough of compressors trying to cycle on and had shut off all the breakers (because I don’t seem to have a main inside), and we were just living on our charged devices. Damn that iPhone flashlight can be handy. After it came back on, I went into the garage and flipped on the breakers. Every old style breaker was fine, but TEN of the newer arc fault ones (you know…..the crappy long ones with a test button that electricians hate and cost $55 instead of $5) would not work no matter what I tried. My nephew is a builder who was able to hook me up with an electrician who was able to come out today instead of next Wednesday like my usual peeps, and my bride wanted me to use a “professional “ because the whole thing was so weird (I’m no electrician, but ive swapped out breakers before…just don’t touch that live bus!). Anyhoo, $850 later, we’re back up and running just fine. Apparently a branch fell and severed one line, so one of the two legs/phases was killed. STILL, the master electrician was shocked as hell as to my story about what happened. while he was working on my stuff, my kid and next door neighbor’s kid came home from school. We had gotten my neighbor to turn off his main breaker (which IS inside his garage) just to be safe. Before he went off to work, be brought me into one of his rooms (sort of a spare bedroom/office) to see if I thought anything seemed strange. I immediately thought I smelled a cross between cordite and something burning electrically. Couldn’t see anything obviously smoking, and by now, the main had been shut off. He wanted me to turn it back on when his son came home, so someone could babysit the house and be on the lookout for anything burning. Anyhoo, I go over there, turn on the main and immediately go to that room. Sure enough, something smelled Smoky, but I didn’t see anything. I looked around for a while and didn’t see anything obvious. Looked under his computer desk and saw two power strips buried deep underneath. The closer one had a light on and looked fine. Could barely see the other one way under the desk, so got down there, reached under the desk and grabbed it. It seemed stuck to the carpet, so I had to give it a tug, and as I did, sparks shot out of the bottom from it to the peeling off melted and black carpet. Needless to say, I dropped it in a flash and went around and unplugged it (like I should have done in the first place). Pulled it out, and that thing had melted through the bottom, one side, and was black all over. Makes me think that if we hadn’t convinced him to shut off his main today, his house would be a pile of ashes right now. Nobody would have been home when Centerpoint fixed the issue, and that thing would have had hours to spark that old carpet on fire. bottom line……electricity is some weird **** that even surprises a master electrician. Be careful out there.
My brother learned that the hard way. Mislabeled breakers in a restaurant, he got shot 5 feet across the kitchen, lucky it didn't kill him. I yelled at him after he told me about it.... "if you're not 100% sure, you turn the ****ing main breaker off"
