# strange electrical issue



## kendallt (Feb 21, 2007)

Over the last week I've been losing one leg of my electrical service. At first thought it was my main breaker, so made plans to have it swapped out.

However, over the next few days waiting, I determined that the leg drops out at certain times of the day, pretty reliably between 5:30 and 6 am, then occasionally between 8 and 8:30, sometimes 9pm. 
It will generally come back on within a half hour to 45 minutes, turning my breaker off then on does nothing.

It's confusing because I don't see how my breaker couldn't cause an almost 'scheduled' failure.

Any ideas on what could possibly cause that?


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## SABL (Jul 4, 2008)

Sounds like a case of having to call the power company. They are responsible for everything that supply the meter base with power. If the outage was on a purely random basis I'd check the lugs on the main breaker but with the problem happening on somewhat of a schedule I would suspect maintenance or upgrades to the grid. Could be they are having an issue with a generator or a section of line.

I had the same problem with my isp when they upgraded the system......like clockwork, my connection was lost at certain times.


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## kendallt (Feb 21, 2007)

Late response, but I had the electric company came out to inspect, they swore it was on my side of the meter. Shortly afterwards that leg went out completely (real pain when you have 220v water pump, stove and water heater!) so had an electrician friend come out to inspect and swap the breaker. Removed the meter (recently installed new style smart meter) and went to set it down and noticed that it 'rattled', shaking it around and watching I saw what looked like a resistor sliding around inside. Took it to the electric company, they gave me crap for removing the meter, but admitted it was bad and had someone come out and install new one. 
No trouble since.


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## SABL (Jul 4, 2008)

Good to hear you found the problem......:thumb:

Power company doesn't like having the tags cut on their meters but electricians do it all the time.....they'll get over it. 

I called my power company to shut down my power back in '79 but they said they couldn't turn it back on for 3 weeks......they guy said to cut the tag and pull the meter after turning the main breaker off. Once I installed a new 200A panel and had it inspected they came out and replaced the temp connectors I installed on the overhead lines. No problem......I had power back on in the house as soon as I plugged the meter in and didn't have to wait 3 weeks.


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