April 4, 2007
Electrical Problems
It's been a while now, but I haven't written about it, since we actually started having electrical problems at home. Several months ago, there started to be some glitches in the electrical system. The DVD player would reset, and then later on the receiver upstairs would lose power and then turn back on a couple seconds later. It started getting worse a couple of months ago though, with certain circuits in the house losing power for a fraction of a second. And then a few weeks ago, one or two circuits would kick out for a few seconds. Finally, things just went bad and we've lost a number of circuits completely.
We are working with an electrician now, and the conclusion is that the 100A panel needs to be upgraded to 200A. Things like the washer, dryer, fridge, and stove can already put a decent load on the system. And adding idle draw and then active draw from the home theater, computers, and upstairs A/V setup all adds up to some continuous strain on the system. The electrician showed me some ash and occasional arcing and sparking at the main breaker when we performed a load test.
So right now we don't have use of some appliances and lights. Not being able to use the stove is the biggest problem, since it means we can't cook anything. I have also started going to the laundromat to take care of our clothes.
Unfortunately, Pacific Gas & Electric estimates 16 weeks before a line upgrade to the house could be finished, providing enough power for a 200A panel. It'll also be expensive. Plus, the electrician needs to upgrade the panel which is also going to cost a lot of money. But we don't really have a choice about that, so we'll have to get it done.
In the meantime, the electrician says we can replace the worn out breakers in the existing panel to get a little more life out of it, until the upgrade can actually happen.
Posted by josuah at April 4, 2007 6:52 PM UTC+00:00
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wesman.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1116
Nami & Kiba - Away From Home
Goodbye Ellie
Evangelion Mini Cooper S Clubman
Married to Christina
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)