Power Line to my house was broken

[ultrarunner]

Another reason to relocate to lower cost area…

Tesla… the previous darling of CA is moving headquarters to TX… just as Toyota did before Tesla took over the plant…

Unreliable power cost and high expense was cited in the NUMMI closure…

As long as there are options the money will flow over time…

People that would have never considered a genset now own them… there would be dozens more Generac in the area but long lead times put off many.

 

[kenmac]

On Friday, Sep 17, the power line to my house was fixed!!!! I complained to the Public Utility Commission on Aug 30, so just over 2 weeks to fix it after the complaint. I don't know for sure if that is why they came out, or if it's just a coincidence, but I'm sort of thinking that the complaint had something to do with them getting it done.

My brother has lived in several states. He has resided in TX for the last five yrs. He told me that Tx. has the worse utility services of any state he has lived.
He said the issue seems to stems from the fact you can purchase elec./gas from several sources, but only one source actually owns the lines, and no one wants to perform maintenance on the lines, or take responsibility for them.
He says they will hardly trim the trees around the lines on the ROW.
he tells me it all comes down to the utilities being unregulated in TX.

 

[ponytug]

ROW? Rest Of the World?

 

[EddieWalker]

That makes sense. We lose power every winter from ice breaking off the branches on the trees and then those branches take out the power lines. There are crews along the roads cutting the trees back all the time, but trees are worse then weeds here, and they never stop growing!!!!

 

[EddieWalker]

ROW? Rest Of the World?

Right of Way. The width of the easement for the powerlines is cleared straight up so no branches grow over the easement, or Right of Way, and touch the power lines.

 

[ponytug]

ROW. Duh. Makes sense now! Thanks.

All the best,

Peter

 

[k0ua]

Is the cost per kW at least cheap?

I'm paying almost 25 cents commercial and residential over 30 cents at times....

For the money we should have the best utility bar none but no longer the case.

Our utility company always responds quickly, usually within an hour or two. We pay 11 cents. I find no fault with our company at all here in the Branson, Mo. area.

 

[MossRoad]

Our utility company always responds quickly, usually within an hour or two. We pay 11 cents. I find no fault with our company at all here in the Branson, Mo. area.

Similar here as well.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Our power was off last night. I was standing in kitchen when it went off. Thought I saw a flash outside, but then thought it was the light inside reflecting from the window.
Ran generator for awhile just using extension cord. Went out to turn it off around 10pm, when the pole behind my house started shooting sparks up in the air. Guess power company tried to reenergize the line. Called power company, took awhile to get a person. Once I reported, power company was there in 5 minutes, cleared whatever the issue was, and power was back on shortly (pun intended)

This is the pole that was a Roman candle last night.

 

[WM75Guy]

My brother has lived in several states. He has resided in TX for the last five yrs. He told me that Tx. has the worse utility services of any state he has lived.
He said the issue seems to stems from the fact you can purchase elec./gas from several sources, but only one source actually owns the lines, and no one wants to perform maintenance on the lines, or take responsibility for them.
He says they will hardly trim the trees around the lines on the ROW.
he tells me it all comes down to the utilities being unregulated in TX.

Depends on where you live in Texas. I have coop electricity, pay $0.105 KWH. Rarely have a power outage and trees get trimmed back on a regular basis. There are 3 parts to electricity getting to our house - generation, distribution, and sales. The coop controls distribution by maintaining their own lines, and sales. They buy electricity wholesale from a power generation company and sell it to the members. The normal reason we lose electricity is all of East Texas is without electricity.

 

[ultrarunner]

Related and may be of interest...

Last week Mom's 1980 Space Maker Microwave started taking 3x longer to heat a cup of water and my first thought is nothing lasts forever so I planned to pick up a new one for her Saturday... then she also started having furnace problems as in delayed combustion.

Friday after work 95 year old neighbor said his T12 4 bulb kitchen light just hums and sometimes glows so I replace with T8 ballast and new bulbs.

Meanwhile Mom's 1978 Amana Refrigerator compressor is having trouble starting but does

Im checking Mom's furnace and see and hear delayed ignition...

Put my Fluke Meter on line and measure 69 volts... go to neighbor and 69 volts... just then another neighbor comes home with a new microwave as a furnace repair drives up to another.

Low utility line voltage is the problem.

What is interesting is everyone's LED lights worked fine never missing a beat with the low voltage.

As darkness fell the street lights did not come on...

I call PGE and was told crews are dealing with record snow in the mountains but someone would be out... I said make sure it's the truck with a new transformer and she laughed saying there is no way to know until evaluated.

I let neighbors know and not a good idea to use furnace and microwave and turn off refrigerators... said electric cooktop ok.

24 hours later crew arrived and said our transformer picked up load for a failed transformer nearby and low voltage in afternoon/evening due to overloading.

It was interesting that street lights came on late at night when power measured 91 volts.

My take away is simply being able to turn on the lights is no longer a good indicator of power being on.

I still had a incandescent in shed and it was just a faint glow at 69 volts.

The furnace delayed ignition due to low voltage to ignitor but enough to flow gas on this 2005 high efficiency gas central furnace... the result was a boom each cycle.

After power restored I noticed my ups was unplugged and mom said it kept beeping... which is probably when the problem started and that was the day before!

When PGE left 117 volts measured at last house on the line...

 

[EddieWalker]

I thought that each house has it's own transformer? Does your moms house share a transformer with the neighbors houses?

 

[ultrarunner]

I thought that each house has it's own transformer? Does your moms house share a transformer with the neighbors houses?

16 single family homes on transformer serving her and 13 on the other so 29 affected but I was the first to call in because no one realized because the lights "Worked"

Transformers circa 1957...

Wonder if all the new plug in cars factored...?

There are 4 out of the 16 neighbors and more around the corner.

Only one home had no issue... the roof covered in solar panels plus two Tesla Power Walls...

 

[EddieWalker]

Do they all have 200 amp service? I'm shocked that a single transformer works for that many homes!!! I guess I just never noticed it before.

 

[ultrarunner]

Do they all have 200 amp service? I'm shocked that a single transformer works for that many homes!!! I guess I just never noticed it before.

All these 2200-2400 square feet homes have 125 amp 240 service... most are still original circa 1950's.

All also have gas hot water and gas central furnace and only two have A/C and these are homes with new service at the time solar installed.

Have wonder with ban on new natural gas and the popularity of plug in cars and new home central air how the grid which is more than a 100 years old in some places can meet the challenge as these older neighborhood homes wired 30 amp 120 volt service.

It took a PGE crew of 4 vehicles and 8 people to change out transformer with some doing residential traffic control.

 

[BigBlue1]

That's a big drop in voltage. I'm surprised anything electronic worked on that. Hope there wasn't much damage to stuff because of the 'brown out'.

 

[ultrarunner]

This was my concern but shortened life is hard to prove on old appliances...

The furnace boom could take out heat exchanger or worse...

PGE pays actual cash value if claim approved... been told $75 for 12 year old refrigerator so anyone's guess on 40+ years old.

I am surprised the LED and T8 seem to work just fine at 69 volts AC.

Also did not realize neighboring pole transformers can share load?

 

[coobie]

Not only could the transformer be bad but it also could be a upstream auto booster or regulator that feds that section of power line.Some crews are chitty trouble shooters and blame a bad transformer when it could be a bad auto booster or regulator for low/high voltage problems.If the problem continues have them check those two things.Keep a eye on the furnace and appliances as they might go bad real soon.

 

[ponytug]

Speaking from personal experience, I can attest that these brown outs / failed neutrals don't jump to top of mind or at least top of me for me.

Just replaced the furnace blower motor; I noticed it was "grunting" longer and longer at each start up, but it took a while to register that something had changed. The HVAC service technician came December 8th, new motor ordered December 9th, second day air. (versus six weeks ground) Trane then proceeded to ship an empty box, a box with random part, a box with a motor with a bent axle, and finally this week the right motor. Only took four weeks for "2nd day air"... When the old motor was pulled, the original motor had 3/8" in/out play in the axle, so the bearings were totally shot. The house now gets warmer faster, which I think is due to better air circulation.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Tinhack]

Do they all have 200 amp service? I'm shocked that a single transformer works for that many homes!!! I guess I just never noticed it before.

Wow, I never seen a shared transformer either. My property has two and this is a "small" place. Both are 25kW. Places are too spread out around here to share a transformer.