Ok our lights at home started flickering, every time we ran the washing machine, and every time the new refrigerator would run. So last week, early in the week, we had an electrician come out and do a free estimate. He showed us that our fuse box was put together by an amature, and that even though the little metal door on part of it said 100 amps, and the house was sold to us as such, clearly we only had 60 amps. It would cost $1,600 to replace the fuse box and make the house 100 amps.
My husband and I debated if and when we should get that work . Then Friday night half our lights and outlets died! And Saturday morning we discovered that that included the starter to our gas furnace. We had no heat! And our daughter's 11th birthday party was scheduled for that evening! 12 children were coming, and 6 were going to sleep over. She didn't want to postpone this party.
When all the lights in the house went out, I heard my 5-year-old son scream from the basement. The outlet downstairs, that we have out portable tv , and Gamecube set up on, was one of the outlets that died. He was screaming because his video game didn't work. That afternoon, I moved the tv-stand, tv, and Gamecube to an outlet in the kitchen that still worked. Strangely the outlet that our TV, VCR, and DVD player is plugged in to, also still worked. So the kids weren't much affected by the outage.
My husband called a furnace company. I couldn't stop him. I said that was like that old urban legend about the guy who calls tech support because his computer is dead, but says he can't read the serial number on it because all the lights are out due to the blackout in his building. But he called the furnace guy and paid him $60 just to tell us the furnace isnt' working because your electricity is out, oh,by the way, look at all this mold in your furnace, you really should buy a new one for over $3,000 .
I called all the parents and told them the house was warm enough for now , but that the furnace was out. I'm so glad that even the parents of the children who were sleeping over just agreed to dress their children warmly and brought them anyway! And the house never did get that cold, with all those little kids running around in it!
Sunday night it finally got really cold. My husband and I dragged our 'big-mommy-bed' queen size mattress in to the living room, put on the space heater, plugged in to a working outlet, and we all 4 slept together on the mattress, so my husband could watch football.
Yesterday, my husband stayed home from work. The electricians came at 7:00 and didn't leave until 6:30 at night! The re-wired everything, and found that the line going from the utility pole in to our house was fraying, from rubbing against a tree branch. The power company, NSP, came out and cut the tree down, and strung a new line from the utility pole from our house. The electricians didn't leave our house until 6:30 at night They really fixed our fuse box so that it's no longer a mess of tangled wires and round, screw-in fuses. It's an orderly box of switches, each swith labeled so we'll know what, in the house, it controls. And the electricians also made sure that major appliances don't share circuits with each other, as they did before.
We had light and heat last night. It felt good. I'm trying not to think about what's inside the furnace right now.
My husband and I debated if and when we should get that work . Then Friday night half our lights and outlets died! And Saturday morning we discovered that that included the starter to our gas furnace. We had no heat! And our daughter's 11th birthday party was scheduled for that evening! 12 children were coming, and 6 were going to sleep over. She didn't want to postpone this party.
When all the lights in the house went out, I heard my 5-year-old son scream from the basement. The outlet downstairs, that we have out portable tv , and Gamecube set up on, was one of the outlets that died. He was screaming because his video game didn't work. That afternoon, I moved the tv-stand, tv, and Gamecube to an outlet in the kitchen that still worked. Strangely the outlet that our TV, VCR, and DVD player is plugged in to, also still worked. So the kids weren't much affected by the outage.
My husband called a furnace company. I couldn't stop him. I said that was like that old urban legend about the guy who calls tech support because his computer is dead, but says he can't read the serial number on it because all the lights are out due to the blackout in his building. But he called the furnace guy and paid him $60 just to tell us the furnace isnt' working because your electricity is out, oh,by the way, look at all this mold in your furnace, you really should buy a new one for over $3,000 .
I called all the parents and told them the house was warm enough for now , but that the furnace was out. I'm so glad that even the parents of the children who were sleeping over just agreed to dress their children warmly and brought them anyway! And the house never did get that cold, with all those little kids running around in it!
Sunday night it finally got really cold. My husband and I dragged our 'big-mommy-bed' queen size mattress in to the living room, put on the space heater, plugged in to a working outlet, and we all 4 slept together on the mattress, so my husband could watch football.
Yesterday, my husband stayed home from work. The electricians came at 7:00 and didn't leave until 6:30 at night! The re-wired everything, and found that the line going from the utility pole in to our house was fraying, from rubbing against a tree branch. The power company, NSP, came out and cut the tree down, and strung a new line from the utility pole from our house. The electricians didn't leave our house until 6:30 at night They really fixed our fuse box so that it's no longer a mess of tangled wires and round, screw-in fuses. It's an orderly box of switches, each swith labeled so we'll know what, in the house, it controls. And the electricians also made sure that major appliances don't share circuits with each other, as they did before.
We had light and heat last night. It felt good. I'm trying not to think about what's inside the furnace right now.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home