Puzzling electrical mystery: power comes back on...!

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e9999

e9999

Gotta get out there...
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Odd thing is happening at the house.

I had noticed for some weeks/months now that the power at my computer was showing fluctuations. Undervoltages kicking on the backup power supply. Thought the grid was acting up cuz every so often (once every few days) the lights would go on in the computer room.

Well, now the lights go off once or twice a day, but only in part of the house. The family room (where the comp is) would go dark but the adjacent kitchen is still on. So clearly, not the overall power to the house. Something internal.

But get this, my daughter figured out yesterday that if she turns the electric oven back on while the power is partially out, the power in the blacked out room comes back instantly.

I thought that this was likely a fuse issue with some overdemand by something. (Note that nothing was changed in the house electricity wise since built, and no new appliance etc.) But that an increased demand kicks the power back ON is odd. Maybe a balancing issue with phases or something?

Ideas before I dig in?
 
loose connection at the service drop/transformer connection? you're electrical power supplyer is responcible for the quality of the incoming power. in most locals it's rather easy for the client to call 'em and they send out someone to check on their side of the system- if that pans out, have an electrican check the connections inside of the service panel.
 
i would call the power company to check the in coming service an electrician to check the panel, just fixed my neighbors main breaker, it had bad contact to the panel bus for probably years and finally lost all contact, by turning the oven on you are back feeding the dead leg, the same thing was going on in his house.
 
call the utility first. they will send a guy who will check evrything on their end. Tell him(if he doesn't already) to do the hair dryer test- or load test the incoming lines and neutral. It could be a loose wire in your panel which the utility will not touch or even look into past the main connection behind the meter. If the problem is on their end, they will fix free of charge. If it is in your panel, it could just be a loose terminal on the main breaker to the busswork. It could also be a loose neutral or grounding conductor on the neutral buss. Being that it seems to affect more than 1 circuit, I would start in the main panel, as it is the common point for all of these connections. Is there a sub panel in the house?This is where a guy w/ a good backgroung in trouble shooting would come in handy. Could get away w/ a couple hours of digging; could be worse, tho.
 
LAMBCRUSHER said:
call the utility first. they will send a guy who will check evrything on their end. Tell him(if he doesn't already) to do the hair dryer test- or load test the incoming lines and neutral. It could be a loose wire in your panel which the utility will not touch or even look into past the main connection behind the meter. If the problem is on their end, they will fix free of charge. If it is in your panel, it could just be a loose terminal on the main breaker to the busswork. It could also be a loose neutral or grounding conductor on the neutral buss. Being that it seems to affect more than 1 circuit, I would start in the main panel, as it is the common point for all of these connections. Is there a sub panel in the house?This is where a guy w/ a good backgroung in trouble shooting would come in handy. Could get away w/ a couple hours of digging; could be worse, tho.
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I was just on a street working today and the house across from me the neutral was broken loose at the pole , no one was home at the house so I called the power company ,let them know and they were out in under 20 mins as the power company doesn't want to pay for everything that plugs in, wired or the whole place burns down on their dime .
 
Since it is isolated to one part of the house, I would think the problem is on your end of the service.
First guess would be a breaker going south to that part of the house or a hot/neutral loose somewhere whithin.
 
loose neutral connection somewhere....any neighbors having problems?
 
thanks for the offer Toy. That would be great. I'm on the West Coast unfortunately, though. What does "backfeeding the dead leg" mean/imply?



All: yes, a loose wire is a possibility. But odd that the electric oven would reset things? If that matters, I suspect that the oven is the only 240V appliance / circuit in the house.
I did try to wiggle and reset the breakers in a subpanel in the house. It does seem like the circuit affected covers a good chunk of the house, maybe more than just one breaker, not sure. Have not yet begun to identify the various circuits. I could try to swap breakers around maybe to see what happens.

Is it easy to get into the main panel and "tighten" the wire connections without getting killed? (Never got in there before.)

I'll contact the utility, but that is likely a long shot.
 
e9999 you have 2 legs of 120 volts coming from the pole, along with a neutral so if one of those 120 legs go dead, you will lose power on just the circuits that are fed by it, but other stuff will be fine. when you fire up the oven it will back feed that dead leg, the house i just did had 60 volts being back fed on the dead leg.

you need to call the utility to check there end of it. if it is in the house beyond the meter they will let you know.

i would not suggest that you go poking around in the main panel , the incoming from the utility will stay hot even if you shut your main down.
 
it's just as likely that the utilities side of the system is bad, as it is that your side is bad. in short it's 50/50- not what i'd call a "long shot". but if you'd rather not call 'em..then call you're qualifyed electrican and have him check from your side (unless you KNOW what you're doing, don't atttempt to do this yourself- and if you do know what your doing, then you've already looked and checked)
 
You said fuse but you may have meant breaker. That said, if it is a fuse then you may have aluminum wire in the house. If so, alum has a tendency to shrink and expand which will over time loosen the joint and cause a situation such as this. It can eventually cause a fire which is why they outlawed it, at least here in TX.

If copper, it could still be the same situation if the oven is not on a circuit on it's own. It should be but as we all know, you never know what a PO will do....

Have a electrician check it out,
 
Any chance the circuit in question is an arc-fault or GFI breaker. I had some weird behavior from one of those that was bad out of the box.
 
There were a bunch of those things that were recalled A whole bunch. I doubt however that that is the case here as the oven circuit seems to be interacting w/ whatever is causing this. This is relative to something in the main...
 
e9999 something that has not been mentioned, you need to get it checked out, if it is a loose wire or bad contacts from your main to your main buss, it is a fire hazard!

and for all those out there reading this, it is a good idea to occasionally turn all your breakers off and back on.
 
toy4xfun said:
e9999 something that has not been mentioned, you need to get it checked out, if it is a loose wire or bad contacts from your main to your main buss, it is a fire hazard!

and for all those out there reading this, it is a good idea to occasionally turn all your breakers off and back on.
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This is a new one to me. Maybe an east coast thing. :meh:Couldn't hurt. What is the reasoning behind that thought, Toy?
 
the loose connection i got, but turning breakers off n on- that's a new one on me i've worked extensively on both coasts and never heard that one before. but it will probably "wow" the natives
 
thanks Toy for the concern and reminder.

I'm having the Utility come by to check their end.

I'll go have a look at the main panel too and see what that thing looks like. Not have had a look in many many years. I know, I know...
 
fledglingme said:
the loose connection i got, but turning breakers off n on- that's a new one on me i've worked extensively on both coasts and never heard that one before. but it will probably "wow" the natives
Click to expand...

I've heard that before, and the explanation I got was to make sure that the breaker mechanism was mechanically free and not corroded or otherwise seized somehow. Have no idea if that's a problem or if this helps. But I'd guess it can't hurt ... other then having to reset all your clocks!
 
LAMBCRUSHER said:
There were a bunch of those things that were recalled A whole bunch. I doubt however that that is the case here as the oven circuit seems to be interacting w/ whatever is causing this. This is relative to something in the main...
Click to expand...

X2, if the service side checks out ok, I would suspect first, the 2 pole main breaker may have a leg going south.
 
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