fun with electricity

[cellio]

For a few weeks now, we've been having intermittent electrical glitches at home. They take the form of really quick power flickers; we see lights dim but not go out, and the UPSs click and maybe beep once while switching to battery and immediately back to current. When it happens it often happens several times in an hour, but it also goes long stretches without happening. We wanted to call an electrician, but wondered how we would demonstrate the problem on demand.

In the wee hours of Friday morning, we got this sort of thing frequently for about three hours (sometimes at 5- or 10-second intervals). The UPSs were what woke us up (they beep when on battery power); while awake I noticed that our alarm clock would usually flicker in time with the beeps. (The alarm clock has battery backup, so there was no reset.) This was pretty annoying. I was awake enough to realize that unplugging the UPSs would do nothing at all (that being the point), but not awake enough to realize that UPSs have on/off switches (duh). It sounded like it was pretty windy outside at the time, so I figured something was jossling the line to the house. Eventually we both got up and went to work.

When I got home at the end of the day the power was out. Well, mostly out; I discovered that the lights in the living room worked (but not in the hall or kitchen), and that the oven still had power (but not the microwave). We had a problem like that a couple years ago and it turned out to be related to work Duquesne Light was doing, so I decided to call and report it.

Every single time (before then) that I've reported a power outage, it has appeared to be mere data collection. No one has ever followed up. So I called them, and then the power came fully back before Shabbat started (yay), and I figured that was that.

Boy was I suprised when a worker from Duquesne Light rang the bell. I told him what had happened; the automated phone system didn't give me a way to describe the partial outage, so he probably just got told "out" (and then when he showed up our lights were on). I asked if the behavior we'd been seeing could be a problem with the line in, or if he thought it was internal. He said "well, let's take a look", and within a minute he was standing in the basement taking the breaker box apart to poke inside. He tested the connections on each breaker and tightened one that was a little loose, while I said that I didn't expect the power company to fix my internal wiring but I was grateful for the examination. Apparently if they make a service call they're required to do some minimal safety inspection, so this really was part of his job. He then went outside to look around, and reported that there's a tree branch that might be bumping a wire in high-enough winds, and maybe that's our problem. So we'll prune that back and see if it helps. He was very helpful and friendly. I regret that I didn't get his name so I could send a "your employee done good" note.

This far exceeded my expectations of customer support from a utility company.

Comments

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

I regret that I didn't get his name so I could send a "your employee done good" note.

You might be able to call them & get his name from their records of who they sent to you.

[featheredfrog.livejournal.com]

Send the note: they're sure to have a record of who serviced the call...

[cellio]

That's a good point. If they received a complaint about a worker they'd have to be able to look it up, so they should be able to look up the recipient of praise too.

It might not just be you

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

It seems like every spring, regardless of where around Pittsburgh I've lived, the power starts flickering. We've been seeing it here over the last two weeks. We've had no partial outages yet this year, but we did have one last year.

In fact, it happens so often that I've ripped the speakers out of several of the UPS boxes (I have a UPS on every bit of electronics in the house). Now, if the lights aren't on, we just hear a bunch of clicking as the units switch over.

Re: It might not just be you

[cellio]

We've gotten occasional flickers in the past (nothing that ever suggested a pattern), but it's been much worse in the last several weeks. We had our service upgraded last summer, so for a while I thought it might be related to that; the first several cases of flickers coincided with furnace turn-ons. But it soon became clear that that timing was just coincidence.

I hadn't realized that it was more widespread; thanks for the data. I just moved a deprecated UPS (not studly enough for the computer/monitor it was serving) into the TV room to cover the VCRs, which I've reprogrammed three times in the last week. I'm sick of that.

Thanks for the tip about the speakers; I hadn't thought of that.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Something's weird here: just as I was scrolling down to read your entry, ... the lights flickered.

Seriously.

Oh, yes, and my brain misread the title first as fun with celebrity.

[cellio]

Something's weird here: just as I was scrolling down to read your entry, ... the lights flickered.

Cue Twilight Zone music... :-)

[ealdthryth.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's really nice to get customer support like that.