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electrical problems
I've written before about our recent weird electrical problems, where several times a week we lose some but not all power for anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours. We were finally able to get some time from an electrician today.
A coworker who knows way more about house wiring than I do had hypothesized that our problem was a faulty main breaker. According to him, power comes into the house at 240v and the main breaker splits it into two streams of 120, each stream going to half the breakers.
The electrician examined the breaker box in some detail and pronounced it sound. We then went to the meter, which he also pronounced sound. He complimented the electrician who upgraded our service to 200 amps last summer. Because he couldn't think of anything more promising, he then proceeded to examine the subpanel on the second floor and pronounced it sound, though he didn't compliment the unknown electrician who put that in. At this point I asked about the main-breaker theory, and he said that's not how our service works. Even so, he took another look at that part of the breaker box and pronounced it still sound.
According to him, our power comes in on two 120v lines. So that means it is possible that a 50% outage could be a Duquesne Light problem. We went outside to look at the connections to the house and the pole; he didn't have a large-enough ladder with him, but he believes the connection to the house is sound and the one at the pole is suspect. (He speculated about which wire based on the types of connectors they used.) He said I should call Duquesne Light, report what he'd said, and ask them to come out.
As we were walking back into the house he said "y'know, I'm doing some work for Duquesne Light tomorrow -- I can get a specific person for you to call". So he's going to call tomorrow morning with that information, which should expedite things.
For all of this he charged me $20. I tried to argue it, saying it had to be more than that, and he said no. His reasoning was that he'd been here less than an hour (though it couldn't have been more than 10 minutes shy of that) and his rate is $30/hour. I told him he has our future business. (He was, in turn, recommended to us by someone else.)
His name is Steve Heinl. (I don't have a phone number at the moment.)
A coworker who knows way more about house wiring than I do had hypothesized that our problem was a faulty main breaker. According to him, power comes into the house at 240v and the main breaker splits it into two streams of 120, each stream going to half the breakers.
The electrician examined the breaker box in some detail and pronounced it sound. We then went to the meter, which he also pronounced sound. He complimented the electrician who upgraded our service to 200 amps last summer. Because he couldn't think of anything more promising, he then proceeded to examine the subpanel on the second floor and pronounced it sound, though he didn't compliment the unknown electrician who put that in. At this point I asked about the main-breaker theory, and he said that's not how our service works. Even so, he took another look at that part of the breaker box and pronounced it still sound.
According to him, our power comes in on two 120v lines. So that means it is possible that a 50% outage could be a Duquesne Light problem. We went outside to look at the connections to the house and the pole; he didn't have a large-enough ladder with him, but he believes the connection to the house is sound and the one at the pole is suspect. (He speculated about which wire based on the types of connectors they used.) He said I should call Duquesne Light, report what he'd said, and ask them to come out.
As we were walking back into the house he said "y'know, I'm doing some work for Duquesne Light tomorrow -- I can get a specific person for you to call". So he's going to call tomorrow morning with that information, which should expedite things.
For all of this he charged me $20. I tried to argue it, saying it had to be more than that, and he said no. His reasoning was that he'd been here less than an hour (though it couldn't have been more than 10 minutes shy of that) and his rate is $30/hour. I told him he has our future business. (He was, in turn, recommended to us by someone else.)
His name is Steve Heinl. (I don't have a phone number at the moment.)