Over the course of the last year I have had all of the following:
- Flickering Lights
- Circuit breakers tripping
- Plugs hot or not working
- Lights dimming
- No power to the house for 30 min or so
- Light bulbs blowing out, even LEDs
- Dimmer switches blowing out
- Ballasts for fixtures blowing out
- My dishwasher and frig blew a fuse often
- Weird sounds coming from my ceiling fans
- Surges where all the lights in half the house would brighten
- Lights that would pop and rattle
It got to where this was happening all the time. Even lights that were off when I left in the morning would be on when I came home. I started to think I had a ghost. Yes, I watch too much Syfy channel!
Over the course of the year I had three electricians to the house and all blamed my electrical panel. The panel is Federal Electric and apparently not a favorite with electricians. But, my home inspector, just last August, said it was fine and might need replacement eventually. But, he assured me no fire hazard to worry about.
The estimates for replacement of the electrical panel were anywhere from $2,300 to $11,000. Yep. I did not add extra zeros, that was 11K on an electrical panel and bringing it up to code. Ouch. There goes the MBA fund!
My heart sank. And I started buying fire extinguishers thinking my house would burn down. Been there, done that. I lived through an apartment fire in 1996. Really scary stuff. And ever since I have a phobia of house fires.
Then the whole block went out, except my house. Guess what? The big green box for the line is in my backyard. Three guys from the electric company were in my yard all morning. Some digging around the box, and eureka! Power restored to the block.
That's when my electrical problem got worse. It got to Hollywood poltergeist levels! I thought Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion and my house were related!
Power to different sections of the house would go out and never trip a circuit. Then without warning the electricity to half the house would be back. No indication to why. Sometimes in the middle of the night things would turn back on and wake me up. In fact, it was often worse at night and on hot days.
Enter the hero of the story, DAD. He said, "Have you called the electric company?" Now why didn't I think of that?
He went on to explain that there are two 110 lines that go into the house and when one of them has a lose connection somewhere the heat created can cause the connection to break with expansion of the wires. He also said it didn't sound like my panel would contribute to the surges. Sometimes the surges were so strong that my ceiling fans would spin and moan like a ghost and the lights would pop.
I called the electric company and they came out right away. We had a few laughs on the phone when I explained that the lights were right out of a horror film and that I needed to get a priest out to banish my poltergeist. But that it might be good if they checked the lines to my home and the big green box in my yard the guys had dug around when the power went out.
I have to say that Oncor was great. They came out checked it, looks like they fixed it too. I have not had a single flicker. Not a single dimming of lights or surge overnight. Let's hope they fixed it for good.
Moral of the story. Before you spend thousands of dollars getting your electrical panel fixed, have the electric provider in your area check the line to the house. Funny thing, not one of the electricians who came to the house suggested doing that. Makes me a bit mad. Glad I had Dad.
Lights back on! Working good for 24 hours!
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