Half the lights are out . . . and we're home . . .

[DGoddessChardonnay]

We seem to have some strange stuff that happens here at home every so often.

Last time we had bad luck was the last week of December. One of the electric space heaters went out, the door boot on my washing machine tore and Mom had to deal with losing her license tag off her car b/c her old insurance company reported the wrong date her coverage ended and the DMV was notified to pull her tag. We've since gotten the mess somewhat straightened out, have a 60 day tag and the car has been recently inspected and passed. Mom's just waiting on her hearing date (and our state is slow as molasses in January when it comes to DMV hearings and such.)

This time, it's more along the sort of electrical wiring in the house. Earlier today, I was trying to get the carpets vacuumed before I got online. Since my brother had gotten up and was getting ready to go outside to take care of the dogs, I decided to start with the living room and work my way back through the dining room, then the small foyer (aka the Doll Room) then my bedroom.

Or that was the plan at least. After turning off my tv, heater in the office, electric blanket, the lamp in the doll room, the tv in the kitchen to make sure I didn't trip a switch . . . I started in the living room.

Had just gotten the portion of the carpet near the front door vacuumed when everything went dead in the room. I had forgotten to cut off the heater in the living room, so I had to go all the way through the house to the office to access the breaker box (ours is the switch kind . . .it has no fuses but rather breaker switches.)

Yep . . . same breaker switch that likes to trip every so often. It's the same one that hates my hair dryer in the mornings too. I flip it back on, then go back to the living room.

The vacuum cleaner would not turn back on. I check the heater, it wouldn't come back on. Neither would the lamp on the desk. I go check my brother's room . . .his computer and tv were both on.

Okay, so I have no power to the outlets in the living room now. After telling Mom what was going on, and she came into the dining room and suggested other things to check, we have now have come to the conclusion that somehow this overload blew all the outlets in the living room walls.

Not only do the wall outlets in the living room are out, but also all the overhead lighting throughout the house.

This means:

Living room ceiling fan
Dining room ceiling fan
Kitchen ceiling fan/light
Bathroom overhead light
my bedroom overhead light
brother's bedroom overhead light'
Mom's bedroom overhead light

are all non-functioning now. Only thing Mom could do at that point was to call the real estate company and leave a message for them detailing the problem. I'm sure somebody will call her back in the morning after they arrive and get her message to find out exactly what's going on so they can call for an electrician to come out to see what needs to be fixed.

They say bad luck happens in threes . . . and we've been having a good week (especially since my big refund check hit the bank Thursday and we've gotten some stuff done with it we were planning on) so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have anything else happen.

[TheSHAD0W]

Sounds like one leg of the main line going to your house is out. This is unfortunately not something you'd probably want to fiddle with; you need an electrician.

[bean]

Sounds like one leg of the main line going to your house is out. This is unfortunately not something you'd probably want to fiddle with; you need an electrician.

This. The ONLY thing you should try is to flip your main breaker (if you have one) off for a few seconds, then back on. Otherwise, you've lost half of your power and the electric company + an electrician need to come out.

I would shut off all breakers that aren't working for now, it really is a fire hazard.

In the US and Canada, most homes are fed by two 110-120 volt feeders, that are 180 degrees out of sync. When you connect something to one of them and a neutral/ground, you get 110-120. When you connect something between them, you get 220-240 volts, due to them being out of sync by 180 degrees (AC power is supplied in 50-60 hertz cycles, depending on the country). You've lost one of those feeders, either at the meter socket, breaker panel, or transformer. I assume Europe is similar, except with higher voltages (220-240 per leg) and 50 hz instead of 60 hz.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

The electrician made it over and it turned out that the switch on the breaker box hadn't reset completely.

So what we're to do now next time it trips is to unplug everything from the wall outlets, wait 5-10 minutes, then flip the switch on the panel, then plug everything back.

Apparently it was enough of a jolt to cause the switch not to completely reset the other Sunday.

As I said . . . only we could have such strange stuff happen . . .

And, in other news, my tv in the bedroom is screwing up now. There's a line coming across the top of the screen (27 inch Magnovox w/DVD and VCR combo) then the VCR started shutting off the tv when the end of the tape would be reached and it would try to rewind. Now the VCR won't play at all . . . I put in a tape that just came in today (a movie I've wanted for years that I finally found a good copy of on Amazon) and now all it wants to do is spit out the tape and turn the tv off.

One more power surge hits and I'm afraid my tv will be a big paperweight. . . which might be a good enough excuse for me to get over to WM and buy one of those nice flat panel tv's.