I had a similar problem a few years back. One evening I lost
power to half my house; and in seemingly random distribution. I looked
in the breaker box and none of the breakers were tripped. Now I'm really
scratching my head: how the hell do you lose half the power to your
house? I called the power company and much to my amazement they showed
up in about 30 minutes (it was 10pm). I described the problem and he
immediately said " No problem, you just lost one leg." Just as Steve
described, there are two 115V lines coming into the house that electrify
different zones. Where 230V are needed, they come together in some
fashion I don't pretend to understand (sort of like digital photography)
to give 230V. Turned out one of my underground lines had a break in the
insulation and after some recent heavy rains the water table was up high
enough to short it to ground. For the evening he hooked up a splitter
that distributed power from one 115V line to both circuits of the house
with the advice to not run the electric range and clothes dryer at the
same time. The next day the Day Crew arrived to make a permanent fix.
Live and learn.
Charlie
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Walt Wayman
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 3:51 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: [OT] More OT electrical advice needed
The utilities in our neighborhood are underground. A few years ago a
medium-size tree in our front yard was topped by a storm, resulting in
its roots disrupting the line to our house. Our house is L-shaped, and
this disruption resulted in one wing of the L being completely dark, a
room at the junction of the two parts of the L being dimly lit, and the
remainder of the house having normal power. Remember, this is the line
coming to the house, with the disruption occuring over 75 feet away, and
not any problem on our side of the meter.
The guys from the power company who responded didn't seem the least bit
puzzled by this. They hooked up some device near our meter that
provided a temporary cure, said they'd be back the next day to fix it,
which they did by digging down to the interrupted line and repairing it.
Although my curiosity got the better of me and I asked why we had
different levels of electricity in various parts of the house, it
evidently was too complicated to be explained to a moron who they
correctly perceived didn't know his amp from his ohm.
Like I said, I don't know much 'bout 'lectricity, but that's never
stopped me from wiring stuff up. Ain't that why there be fuses and
circuit breakers? And fiberglass ladders. :-)
Walt
--
"Anything more than 500 yards from
the car just isn't photogenic." --
Edward Weston
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|