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This evening we had an adventure at home. A little before dinner the
lights started flickering. This has happened many times over the past
year or so. I don't know if it was happening when you were home or not.
The power into the house goes weird where the voltage on one phase goes
high and the voltage on the other phase goes low. The basement lights
start to pulse on and off because the voltage is so low. I called PSNH
about 8:20 PM reporting the trouble. No one else in the neighborhood had
reported a problem so I told them not to send a truck out until I checked
with neighbors and called back. Joyce called Anna and they weren't having
any trouble. The problem kept getting worse to the point where I decided
to turn off the main breaker. There is a picture below showing the panel
off the breaker box and my two AC voltmeters connected to monitor the
voltage. At about 8:50 I called PSNH back and gave a second trouble
report. I didn't write down the name of the second person I talked with.
She entered the data into the computer and said they would send out a
truck. In the meantime, power is off in our house. We all read books by
flashlight waiting for the truck. Everyone else went to bed and I stayed up waiting and reading. About 1:00 AM I started doing some tests. I turned on only the basement light circuit and the upstairs bathroom light circuit. The voltage was only 75 VAC in the basement and 175 VAC in the bathroom. At 1:50 there still was no truck so I called PSNH back. "Karen" answered and looked up the trouble report. Somehow the second report never got entered and the truck was never sent. I was a bit irritated about that. Karen said I had to authorize that I would pay for the truck coming if the problem turned out to be inside the house. My testing clearly showed that the problem was outside. She said I didn't need to stay awake because they could check everything outside. So I went to bed. That was a mistake. At about 3:30 AM the phone rang and Karen asked me to go outside and talk with the linemen. I dressed and checked the bathroom and basement lights on the way out. They looked normal so I figured they had solved the problem. Not so. The linemen were claiming there was no problem and they had tested their equipment. Unfortunately, instead of testing before touching anything when they got there they had already pulled the power meter and "changed things". I restored power to the whole house and went back outside. The problem started showing up again with flickering lights that the lineman could see. Long story short, because I was asleep I wasn't able to meet the truck and bring the guys inside while the problem was visible. After tightening all their connections and testing more, they still claimed it was inside the house. I'll probably get a bill for $250 for this call. |
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