On Mar 14, 9:18*am, sym wrote:
On Mar 11, 1:43*pm, Ray wrote:



On Mar 10, 2:59*am, mm wrote:

On Sun, 8 Mar 2009 15:16:35 -0700 (PDT), Toasty

wrote:
. *I had an electrician tighten up
connections in the circuit breaker box, but he did not remove any and
reinstall any breakers. *
Could the problem be in a location in the box that is inaccessible
unless the breakers are removed?

I will have Con Edison (utility company) send a technician to inspect
their electric meter.

Why just the meter? *Why just connections in the breaker box.

Maybe you are omitting other things, but rather than direct your
electrician and Con Edison so much, I would tell them your problem and
ask them to solve it. * Of course you shouldn't give the electrician a
blank check, but 30 or 60 minutes to diagnose and tell you what he
thinks is wrong and a price for the rest of the job would have been
fair.

How do you know for sure it is only your house. *I have flickering
lights a couple times a month. *I'm sure it's the electric company's
failing, and not in my house.

The outages here shut down my computer sometimes. *This has been too
disruptive too often. I ask my next door neighbor if they noticed any
flickering after it occurs here, but they have reported no such
thing. *I'm not certain that the problem is with only my house,
though.

You're probably right about my directing the electrician too much.
Someone more aggressive might have suggested shutting off the power
and inspecting the main breakers, etc. *I ASSUMED that if he felt this
necessary to diagnose the problem, he'd suggest it. *Eh, I'll shut my
mouth next time and just ask him to do whatever is necessary to find
the source of trouble.

Con Edison reported that no other customers in the area filed any
complaints regarding flickering, outages. *They did mention something
about a "smoking manhole" problem in different parts of the city.
Sodium Chloride used to melt snow is corroding electrician lines,
according to Con Edison and this MIGHT be related to my electrical
problem. *Anyway, Con Edison says they won't send a technician here to
make any inspections until the "smoking manhole" problem is taken care
of first.

I'm going to stop acting as if I'm a licensed electrician and just LET
THE EXPERTS DO THEIR JOB!!!!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

i as an electrician appreciate any info i might get from my
customer,cant tell you how many times something they say can lead you
right to the problem. after my previous post i went on a service call,
found a bad connection at the service,i replaced all 3 connections
although only 1 was bad seems to of taken care of it. but it was all
the same symptoms you described.

My electrician was just here today and pulled Con Edison's meter and
tightened up connections in the box and applied some conductor
termination compound to the contacts where the meter plugs in. There
was no sign or arcing or corroded contacts in the electric meter.
Also, he pulled all the circuit breakers in the breaker box and
inspected the buss bars and all metal contacts. No sign of arcing,
annealing of metals, corrosion, no cracked or broken buss bars. All
connections tightened.

The lock on the electric meter was rusted shut, so a Con Ed tech
stopped by the other day and cut it off. That was the only corrosion
noticed with the meter.

Turns out the problem was with Con Edison. They pulled the electric
meter and did a load test and determined there was a "bad neutral"
under ground in the street.

They pulled a metal cover out of the street and had to pump out a few
gallons of water before getting to the wiring.

I called Con Edison several times over a few months before they sent
someone. I informed them that I hired an licensed electrician and had
him check my circuit breaker box and the connections at Con Edison's
electric meter.

On Mar 8, 9:52*pm, "John Grabowski" wrote:
"RBM" wrote in message

...





"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...
Toasty wrote:
Hello,

Since about December 2008, there has been intermittent flickering of
lights and very brief electrical outages in this house. *It occurs on
several circuits at the same time. *I had an electrician tighten up
connections in the circuit breaker box, but he did not remove any and
reinstall any breakers. *A corroded and detached ground wire from the
breaker box to a water pipe was discovered and has since been
repaired. *There was no sign of "arcing" in the box. *All connections
were tight.

Could the problem be in a location in the box that is inaccessible
unless the breakers are removed?

I will have Con Edison (utility company) send a technician to inspect
their electric meter.

There have been problems reported by the utility company that I was
told involves the melting salt used on the roads mixing with snow and
leaking into the manholes, causing corrosion of electrical lines.
Such disruption of the lines should affect many houses on the grid,
not just my own, should it not?

My biggest concern is that the problem will occur during heavy usage
of electricity during this summer when the A/C units are running.

Around here, your electrician can pull the meter
and check the connections there as long as he/she/it
calls the power company to let them know the seal
was cut. With the meter out, everything can be safely
checked out. Making sure they notify the power company
keeps you out of trouble.

TDD

It used to be that way in ConEd territory around 30 years ago, but I think
the honor system didn't work out to well. These days a licensed
electrician has to file papers to have them come out and remove the case
hardened hydraulic lock from the customer's meter box

*Quite a contrast to JCP&L who doesn't want to come out and do anything
trivial like that. *Fortunately they only have the little wire seals that
are easily cut. *If you want them to do something like tie in a service or
pull a meter there is a service charge and a permit would need to be taken
out. *I think it is $218.00 minimum.

We have a small, municipally-owned electric company.

Last time I had an electrician checking something out, he called the
BPU and they were there in about 5 minutes. They took off the wire
seal and chatted with the electrician for a while. Then they put a
new seal on top of the meter-box and told the electrician to "seal it
up" when he was done.

It's a small town. Of course he did it because everyone knows
everyone else. If he didn't do it, and do it properly, that would be
the end of him doing electrical work around town.

On Sun, 8 Mar 2009 15:16:35 -0700 (PDT), Toasty
wrote:

Hello,

Since about December 2008, there has been intermittent flickering of
lights and very brief electrical outages in this house. It occurs on
several circuits at the same time. I had an electrician tighten up
connections in the circuit breaker box, but he did not remove any and
reinstall any breakers. A corroded and detached ground wire from the
breaker box to a water pipe was discovered and has since been
repaired. There was no sign of "arcing" in the box. All connections
were tight.

Could the problem be in a location in the box that is inaccessible
unless the breakers are removed?

I will have Con Edison (utility company) send a technician to inspect
their electric meter.

There have been problems reported by the utility company that I was
told involves the melting salt used on the roads mixing with snow and
leaking into the manholes, causing corrosion of electrical lines.
Such disruption of the lines should affect many houses on the grid,
not just my own, should it not?

My biggest concern is that the problem will occur during heavy usage
of electricity during this summer when the A/C units are running.




Do you have aluminum wiring in the house? Have devices been
wired using the back stab method or the much more reliable screw
method?

Do all the circuits do this at once or do only some circuits
loose power?