Hi, all!

A week ago about half of the outlets in our house lost power, and
remain so, with bizarre exceptions described below.

Our current (no pun intended) hypothesis is some sort of opening along
the affected circuit.

We moved into this 1950-built house only a few months ago, and have no
schema of the outlets, and thus do not know the outlet sequence in the
series.

There has been a curious behavior, however, which, perhaps, someone has
heard about and is able to interpret:

After the power loss, we tried turning on the electric stove, setting
one of its burners on highest heat. The burner reached and stayed at
mildly warm temperature (one could keep one's hand on it, perpetually),
and, strangely (!), turning on any burner dial caused some of the
outlets in the house to regain power, but below normal levels
(appliances that were plugged into these "resurrected" outlets operated
halfway -- lamps were dim, answering machine blinked but did not take
messages, etc.), then would "die" again when the stove was turned off.

Would the above behaviour be consistent with a circuit opening? Has
anyone heard of this and have an idea?

TIA

andrew

PS no circuit breakers appear to have been tripped.

wrote:
Hi, all!

A week ago about half of the outlets in our house lost power, and
remain so, with bizarre exceptions described below.

Our current (no pun intended) hypothesis is some sort of opening along
the affected circuit.

We moved into this 1950-built house only a few months ago, and have no
schema of the outlets, and thus do not know the outlet sequence in the
series.

There has been a curious behavior, however, which, perhaps, someone has
heard about and is able to interpret:

After the power loss, we tried turning on the electric stove, setting
one of its burners on highest heat. The burner reached and stayed at
mildly warm temperature (one could keep one's hand on it, perpetually),
and, strangely (!), turning on any burner dial caused some of the
outlets in the house to regain power, but below normal levels
(appliances that were plugged into these "resurrected" outlets operated
halfway -- lamps were dim, answering machine blinked but did not take
messages, etc.), then would "die" again when the stove was turned off.

Would the above behaviour be consistent with a circuit opening? Has
anyone heard of this and have an idea?

TIA

andrew

Simply put, there are 2 "circuits" inhto the house;
sounds like one of them is open.
Could be as simple as a Main fuse or maybe a loose connection.

First step is to call the power co.
They will investigate and tell you whether it is their
job or yours. Sometimes they are very helpful.

Jim

On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 18:06:43 -0700, seawolf wrote:

Hi, all!

A week ago about half of the outlets in our house lost power, and
remain so, with bizarre exceptions described below.

Our current (no pun intended) hypothesis is some sort of opening along
the affected circuit.

We moved into this 1950-built house only a few months ago, and have no
schema of the outlets, and thus do not know the outlet sequence in the
series.

There has been a curious behavior, however, which, perhaps, someone has
heard about and is able to interpret:

After the power loss, we tried turning on the electric stove, setting
one of its burners on highest heat. The burner reached and stayed at
mildly warm temperature (one could keep one's hand on it, perpetually),
and, strangely (!), turning on any burner dial caused some of the
outlets in the house to regain power, but below normal levels
(appliances that were plugged into these "resurrected" outlets operated
halfway -- lamps were dim, answering machine blinked but did not take
messages, etc.), then would "die" again when the stove was turned off.

Would the above behaviour be consistent with a circuit opening? Has
anyone heard of this and have an idea?

It sounds like you lost your neutral. This is a very dangerous situation
and must be corrected ASAP. It is often the utility's problem, so call
them *NOW*. Meanwhile unplug everything, particularly the refigerator, or
you may be in for even more grief!

--
Keith

Thanks for the prompt reply.

It's been six days since the power outage. During that time we've been
running a refrigerator, a freezer, computer, VCR/TV, using the
microwave, etc. The water heater is working also.

I am not sure what the neutral is (will attempt to find out).

Could you please give more details on the "grief" that could occur?
We've been living with half of the outlets operational for six days
now, and it's 9:40PM here. What are the risks if we wait until the
morning to call the power co.? (Given the grave warning, we will, of
course, reduce power consumption immediately by, say, half?)

Thanks very much

andrew

In article .com,
wrote:

I am not sure what the neutral is (will attempt to find out).

You likely have two hot wires and one neutral wire coming into
your house. From the neutral to one hot wire is 110 volts AC,
and from neutral to the other hot wire is 110 volts AC. From
hot wire to hot wire is 220 volts.

Most normal power outlets use one side of the circuit, a
neutral to hot 110 volts. The idea is that half of the
outlets are on one side, have on the other side. If you
lost one of the hot wires, you would lose about half of
your outlets, and the other half would be more or less
normal.

Items like air conditioners, hot water heaters, electric heat,
electric dryers, and electric ranges use both sides of the
power line to get 220 volts AC inside. Again, with one
hot wire missing, your stove would only appear to get about
half as hot.

Could you please give more details on the "grief" that could occur?
We've been living with half of the outlets operational for six days
now, and it's 9:40PM here. What are the risks if we wait until the
morning to call the power co.?

Call the power company. They will be out right away. If
they say the line in is OK, then you need to call an electrician.
This has to be figured out right away and fixed. It is
possible that this will start a fire, and it is possible
that you can touch something that is otherwise OK and get
an electric shock that will kill you. You will also significantly
reduce the working life of your appliances.

Please do call the power company tonight. All of them have
an emergency hot-line. And don't sleep in the house again,
not unless you trust your life to your smoke alarms (you do have
smoke alarms, and you have tested them, haven't you?).

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

just called the power company - should be here soon. Thanks a million!

andrew

wrote in message
oups.com...
just called the power company - should be here soon. Thanks a million!

andrew

I'll guess that the electric utility folks will find a bad connection on one
of the "hot" wires leading to your house. What you describe has happened to
my house several times and was finally fixed properly by replacing the
service wires to eliminate several splices. What caused the problem were
connections at the pole transformer and splices that corroded over time so
the connections became intermittent.

TKM

keith wrote:
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 18:06:43 -0700, seawolf wrote:
After the power loss, we tried turning on the electric stove, setting
one of its burners on highest heat. The burner reached and stayed at
mildly warm temperature (one could keep one's hand on it, perpetually),
and, strangely (!), turning on any burner dial caused some of the
outlets in the house to regain power, but below normal levels
(appliances that were plugged into these "resurrected" outlets operated
halfway -- lamps were dim, answering machine blinked but did not take
messages, etc.), then would "die" again when the stove was turned off.

Would the above behaviour be consistent with a circuit opening? Has
anyone heard of this and have an idea?

It sounds like you lost your neutral. This is a very dangerous situation
and must be corrected ASAP. It is often the utility's problem, so call
them *NOW*. Meanwhile unplug everything, particularly the refigerator, or
you may be in for even more grief!

Doesn't sound that way to me.

Half of his 110v lines are out and his 220v stuff is suffering an
undervolt. It is much more likely that he lost one of his two hots. He
doesn't need to unplug any of his 110v appliances but probably shouldn't use
any 220v appliances with motors (furnace, air conditioner, air compressor).

wrote in message
news:9J9be.33184$gV.31475@lakeread02...

Half of his 110v lines are out and his 220v stuff is suffering an
undervolt. It is much more likely that he lost one of his two hots. He
doesn't need to unplug any of his 110v appliances but probably shouldn't
use
any 220v appliances with motors (furnace, air conditioner, air
compressor).

I had that happen to an apartment building I lived in once. A tree root had
intruded into an underground power main and breached one of the two hot
wires.