We had a broken neutral line leading into our house, which caused a power imbalance that blew out appliances and computers.
Four things were learned from this episode:
1) If you notice your lightbulbs are burning out way too quickly, you may have a power imbalance beginning. In our case, the insulation of the cable was nicked and it took two decades to fully corrode, but as it wore away, certain signs began to appear, most notably the lightbulbs burning out in a few weeks or months when they should last for years.
2) If you have an electrical event in your house - blinking lights, melting surge protectors, brown out or black out conditions, CALL THE POWER COMPANY BEFORE CALLING AN ELECTRICIAN! Progress Energy has a device they can attach and tell you in five minutes if it's their problem or yours. An electrician may take hours and hundreds of dollars to track down the problem only to discover that the utility company has to fix it.
3) Deal with these problems before they blow up, because making a claim against Progress Energy takes forever, they aren't going to cover the loss (only the depreciated value of an appliance that worked perfectly that you had no need to replace but now you're going to with a fraction of the money to do it), and that's IF they admit it's their problem. I had a very nice man from their claims department that said he had to determine if it was a fence post, a tree root, or a lightening strike that corroded the line.
4) I have wonderful neighbors! The Kubiks and Turners pitched in to protect our refridgerated goods and make sure the house wouldn't burn down (I was flying in from Seattle and no one was going to be home that night. Al and John proved themselves perfect neighbors in every fashion -- as they continually do throughout the years!
Be warned!
Four things were learned from this episode:
1) If you notice your lightbulbs are burning out way too quickly, you may have a power imbalance beginning. In our case, the insulation of the cable was nicked and it took two decades to fully corrode, but as it wore away, certain signs began to appear, most notably the lightbulbs burning out in a few weeks or months when they should last for years.
2) If you have an electrical event in your house - blinking lights, melting surge protectors, brown out or black out conditions, CALL THE POWER COMPANY BEFORE CALLING AN ELECTRICIAN! Progress Energy has a device they can attach and tell you in five minutes if it's their problem or yours. An electrician may take hours and hundreds of dollars to track down the problem only to discover that the utility company has to fix it.
3) Deal with these problems before they blow up, because making a claim against Progress Energy takes forever, they aren't going to cover the loss (only the depreciated value of an appliance that worked perfectly that you had no need to replace but now you're going to with a fraction of the money to do it), and that's IF they admit it's their problem. I had a very nice man from their claims department that said he had to determine if it was a fence post, a tree root, or a lightening strike that corroded the line.
4) I have wonderful neighbors! The Kubiks and Turners pitched in to protect our refridgerated goods and make sure the house wouldn't burn down (I was flying in from Seattle and no one was going to be home that night. Al and John proved themselves perfect neighbors in every fashion -- as they continually do throughout the years!
Be warned!
