lost one phase of our electricity, half of our ckts?

[mudfud]

here's a new one to me.

wife calls and says something weird is going on. some of our circuits are working, and not others. she checked the breakers and that was not the problem. she called her electrician friend who told her how to check at the main, and ONE of our phases was out...

I did not know that some of the house circuits ran off one phase and the others off the other. seems that probably the weather knocked one of our 3 wires at the street pole off. PGE still hasn't got the cherry picker out... I suggested they send a pole dancer...

the wife, who is quite creative herself, has extension cords running to the frig, the cable modem and router, and the tenant's unit in the back of the property. it is a very good thing that we have heavy duty xtension cords for the electric vehicles, at least 6 of them!

I can do DC projects, but AC kinda stumps me. anyone else ever lost one phase and part of their house circuits?

[compirate]

Don't run anything that requires 3-phase (electric dryer or stove?) or anything else heavy duty (220v or higher). I'd think it might not be good for them.

Three-phase electric power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mudfud]

yikes. good point. trying to think what is still 220 besides the EV plug in.

I wonder if you just get 110 out of it?

[new in town]

Half of the 220 that you need to run it Meaning Appliance...

Spoiler

: : :

[flyboy577]

We lost one phase about a year and a half ago. The problem was actually a failure of a bakelite insulator mount in the outside meter box and was not the power company's problem. Since we have 400amp service, I had to get an electrician to replace the box which ended up costing about $2,000 (yikes). The electric company did replace the analog meter with a digital one ar no cost. We had the same weird symtoms. Of course none of the 220volt appliances worked (ovens, stove, heat pump, dryer).

[pinball wizard]

here's a new one to me.

wife calls and says something weird is going on. some of our circuits are working, and not others. she checked the breakers and that was not the problem. she called her electrician friend who told her how to check at the main, and ONE of our phases was out...

I did not know that some of the house circuits ran off one phase and the others off the other. seems that probably the weather knocked one of our 3 wires at the street pole off. PGE still hasn't got the cherry picker out... I suggested they send a pole dancer...

the wife, who is quite creative herself, has extension cords running to the frig, the cable modem and router, and the tenant's unit in the back of the property. it is a very good thing that we have heavy duty xtension cords for the electric vehicles, at least 6 of them!

I can do DC projects, but AC kinda stumps me. anyone else ever lost one phase and part of their house circuits?

it sounds like you lost 1 leg of the 220 going into your house.hopefully,the problem is out at the pole,and it should be the power company's responsibility to fix , and not yours .one word of caution -there is probably 1 leg still hot at the 220 appliances ,so be careful if you try to work on anything.

[mudfud]

we are back on line with all circuits live. seems that one of the 3 wires had a bad connection and corroded. wind/weather may have been enough for it to open circuit.

thanks for the comments. learned something else today.

[FTKServices]

If you have someone (electrician friend) check your power box on the 3 incoming legs to verify if one of the hot legs is dead. If both are good then you can have a bad main breaker. I replaced my 60 amp service to a 200 amp service a couple years back, myself. Not too bad to do...

[CoventryCat86]

Don't run anything that requires 3-phase (electric dryer or stove?) or anything else heavy duty (220v or higher). I'd think it might not be good for them.

Three-phase electric power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, it won't hurt a dryer. The motor is only 110 and hopefully running off the phase that's still active. Reduced current won't hurt the element or any element in an electric stove/oven either.

I'd be more concerned about the water pump as those are usually 220VAC motors. My guess is it just won't run at all.

[takethecastle57]

i was introduced to 3 phase industrial wiring when my dad had to get his tool and die machinery hooked up as well as the washer and dryer and stove at home . It would be best to have your house up north All Electrical wiring checked out . I once had a wall outlet short out and not trip the breaker instead it turned into a heating element and woke me up by smelling something burning . I quickly shut off the apts breakers and luckly had a spare grounded outlet and removed the bad , put in the good . Very scary and I think I'm very lucky .