My electric service providers is ticking me off!!

[retro-man]

What a week I have had. Monday my state power company, Public Service Co of NH came over to change the wire that leads from the transformer on the pole on my property to the new power lines that had been put up. They are widening the street in front so new poles and new wire set back about ten feet from where they were. Ok no big deal, ha. I asked the guy if I should shut the main breaker in the building off so we don't have any problems. He states not necessary we never have problems doing this. Ok well you haven't entered into my world where nothing ever goes as planned. Power is off for about 10 minutes and then they re-energize the line. Power goes back on all seems well. Then it starts. Tuesday I find my credit card machine is totally fried. Have to call and have the company overnight a new one. I go to call the power company to complain and get a claim number to put a claim into them for damages. Well 5 cordless phones have been fried. The only way to answer is to use the speaker phone. Use my cell phone to call. Explained the situation and they gave me a claim #. Yesterday went to the basement and all was quiet. Hmm how come the dehumidifier is not running. Oh ya the power went out and it shuts itself off. Turn it on, nothing. It is plugged into the service outlet on the furnace. No power at the furnace, there are rows of leds that let you know exactly what it is doing. Check the breaker upstairs it is tripped. Reset it and go back downstairs, still nothing. Call the hvac service and they come out and look and the main mother board is fried along with an aux panel is fried. Now back to the beginning. When I asked about shutting off the main breaker I new he was wrong and I should have gone with my gut feeling and shut the building down. I don't believe I would have all these problems with a power surge. Have been going through the house and trying everything to see if any other electrical problems are happening. I figure this is going to cost them between $1200. to $1500. for a simple wire exchange. So again I have learned go with your gut feeling no matter what the situation is and don't rely on the "professionals" opinion 100%. Well off to go shopping to find new corless 2 line phones. They are going to cover all losses through their company, you can bet on that.

Jon

 

[tomturbomatic]

Sorry for your misfortune. Have any neighbors voiced similar problems?

 

[whirlcool]

That's very similar to what happened to us in 2008 when our kitchen got fried. Stove, dishwasher and microwave all at once.

Complained to the power company. They said that if you read in their contract it states that "you connect to their service at your own risk. They are not responsible for damages." they told me to contact my home owners insurance company.
I did and they said "Prove it! If you can prove a power surge by providing proof of date and time and damage directly related to it we'll cover it.". Just how in the hell do you provide that? You can't and they know it.

You just have a lesson learned and now know to take precautions. You were lucky they told you what they were doing. Most times they don't.

 

[davey7]

I'm dreading smart meter installation

Some of the switchovers sound like your experience. Ugh.

I get a professional magazine at work for electricians and they have a disaster series with an expert witness type. One story was about a faulty ground which was routing itself through the cable-tv cable and cutting it caused a fire. Strange things can happen with electricity it seems (why I won't touch my fuse box wiring).

 

[DADoES]

 
Interesting insurance stories.  My parents had two incidents of damage from electric feed issues and their insurance covered both times ... but I think some neighbors were also affected.

 

[kb0nes]

Condolences on the damage, its troubling to hear, hopefully things get smoothed out easily.

If you know that the workers are going to drop power to your home, flipping the main breaker preemptively isn't a bad idea. When they restore the power it can bounce and develop inductive spikes from the transformer windings. I will often flip breakers off during a power outage for this reason. I usually just flip the branch breakers though so I can restore circuit by circuit though. Its also good to leave on one lighting circuit so I know when power is restored.

When all is said and done and you are up and running again, consider adding a panel mounted whole house surge protection device. Having large, high current MOV's shunting the spikes right at the panel is a great first line of defense. Its still a good idea to have additional protection at the device end, but the panel is closer to ground and a more effective place to divert excess surge energy.

 

[twintubdexter]

A friend had a power surge which destroyed the range, dishwasher and a few other things. As far as insurance was concerned, both his insurer and Edison agreed that things would be covered...provided the surge caused a fire and that in turn destroyed the appliances.

 

[jerrod6]

When I had my smart meter installed I turned the power off at the electric panel and unplugged all appliances. In the case of the DW  and refrigerator they are on their own circuits so I turned the circuit breakers off.  TV, PC, Phones, heater all electronic stuff where the last thing I plugged in  after the power was restored.  I also have a built in surge protector in my electric panel  I am told that if there is a surge it needs to be replaced.  So far it is OK but....I guess it is working...no way I know of testing it.

 

It took less than 1 1/2  minute to install the new meter though and many of the pole people working for my electric distributor are contractors anyway, so who knows what they know.  The meter installer was a contractor because I asked him.

 

[circlew]

Something similar happened a few blocks away several years ago. A new transformer serving four or five houses was installed. Unfortunately, it was not a 120/240, but a 240/480. The overvoltage caused appliances in those homes to be ruined. The power co. (municipal) tried to get the people's insurance to pay, but they all refused. Power co. did end up paying to replace or repair the customers property, but it took a while.

Seems like newer appliances are a lot more sensitive than the old models are.

 

[kb0nes]

I wouldn't have much fear of a meter replacement. The meter is simply a big plug and they swap out. Cut the seal, pull the meter, shove in the new one and crimp on a new seal. Its no more likely to cause damage downstream then flipping off a breaker. I'd probably turn everything off though just to be nice to the meter contacts when its reinserted though.

Most of the whole home protectors have monitoring LED's on them that remain illuminated if the MOV's are still intact. Surge supressors without indicators would need visual inspection of the MOV's, although some are in sealed throw-away packages. If you can unscrew the cover you can look inside and see if the MOV's are blown up. A good MOV looks like a disc capacitor and it's cover will be intact and not discolored. They can burn, split and even flat disappear if the surge energy is high enough. If the MOV's look like the one in this photo its time for a new device!

 

[tolivac]

Surprized the lineman didn't have you open your building breaker while changing the lines-Not only for the safety of you and your appliances-but HIS.Closing loaded circuits on their part can be dangerous.Same sort of thing with meter replacements-yes its a "plug" but would YOU want to "plug" in a device that could be handling 200A or more current in your hands???NOT ME!!!!

 

[whirlcool]

When they came to install our smart meter they turned everything off in the electrical box AND the installer put on these very long, thick gloves and a large face mask. I asked him why all the protection? He said some of the old meteres have exploded while being removed from homes. He also said that due to some homes not being up to code on wiring some homes have caught fire while the meters were changed out. But that is the end customers responsibility, not the power companies.

 

[tolivac]

At the transmitter site if we have to any sort of live switching-we have to don flash suits-thick canvass like cloth upper and lower parts,linemens gloves-and helmet with darkened face mask-protect your eyes from a possible flash that could blind you.And another guy has to be present-we would only do this in an extreme emergency.

 

[rp2813]

Don't count on anybody to know what they're doing anymore.

 

During a recent conversation with the contractor who did my master bath remodel, he said he was having a difficult time finding qualified help and gave the example of young apprentice types not even being able to read a tape measure -- they will say something like, "Six feet, five inches plus two lines."

 

After I lifted my jaw from the floor, I told him I'm glad I won't be around when our nation implodes as a direct result of the dangerously dumbed down U.S. educational standards. 

 

And from what I've seen of Dave's granddaughter's 2nd grade homework, this "Common Core" garbage is only making things worse.

 

[arbilab]

Not to contracept what happened to you, but at least 2/3rds of my life has been in the lightning belt where every passing thunderstorm slams the power off and back on multiple times. One thing it will definitely do is stall your fridge or AC compressor trying to restart against full pressure, but those motors are protected from that.

In all that slamming and banging I have never had ANYthing damaged. HUNDREDS of events, zero fatalities. I've even been shocked by the phone when lightning hit and still no damage. My computer is always powered, it's 16yo and STILL no damage.

Electricity-- especially lightning-- can do anything it wants. But as an electrical engineer and longterm potential victim, I have to say that power interruptions are not categorically destructive.

 

[whirlcool]

they will say something like, "Six feet, five inches plus two lines."

A few months ago we were in Home Depot in the lumber department buying some fence pickets and another HD employee was going to cut some wood for a customer. When he asked the customer how long he wanted it cut the customer replied "Four Feet three inches and one tiny line." And I'm not kidding. It's funny that you brought that up!

 

[cornutt]

It sounds like they reconnected retro's service in the wrong sequence... you have to reconnect the neutral first. Otherwise you get a "floating neutral" which causes overvoltage on 120V circuits.

 

[retro-man]

Well it is all done and over. Received my check from the electric company this week for payment in full for all the repairs and replacement parts and pieces. Sent them an email with all the info and prices and they sent back a release form to sign and return. Signed it sent it back and within 3 days had a check in hand. Strange thing though you would think it would be a corporate check, it was a hand written check looking like it came out of regular checkbook. This is not the 1st time we received a check like this. Had a problem with Lowes and they had to send us a check and it was the same. Hand written and came out of regular check book. Glad to see this is over.
Jon

 

[iej]

They always advise you (in writing) 30 days before a planned outage here and they also stress that you should disconnect sensitive equipment and treat all circuits as potentially live.

We've broken up the power market here though these days. Your power company doesn't provide the distribution infrastructure. That's been hived off as a separate publically owned company. The national grid is also a separate state owned entity. The power companies just generate electricity and sell to end users.