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Bad Day Thursday 6/3

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PAUL161

PAUL161

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Had fiber optic internet and TV system ordered from our electric co. and on the list for 3 years! Yesterday they came to lay the first line of underground cable, 350 feet of it. Using a machine to pull the conduit underground was supposed to take about half an hour, but, while pulling the conduit they had the puller set too deep and cut our main underground power source in half and we lost all power. 6/1/2 hours later they had power restored! In the mean time I had to run a couple hundred feet of power cords from out generator system to plug into the freezers and refrigerators! What a mess! They got everything hooked up but an electrician has to come out today to inspect everything and give an approval. 30 minute jobs are sometimes a tad longer than expected! What a day! (n) :rolleyes2:
 
Sorry for the headaches, but you are a lucky man to have the crew fix the mistake so quickly. Where I live, fixing the mistake would have taken a few days, as the "oops" crew would have needed to call central office to have another crew come fix the problem.

:wall:
 
A few years ago we had a major wind storm come through and knocked down several power poles. We were with our power for three days. As such extended outages are very rare here, we don't have a generator, thus we had to put all our food in ice chests. What a fun time!
 
Well, the day before yesterday the fix was temporary just to get power back, the company had a certified electrician come back yesterday, cut out the temp fix, and restored the cut cables back to code. That was a 4-hour shutdown! Living in a totally electric house can create problems at times. Realizing this when we built the house is the reason we had a whole house standby generator system installed, it's been a life saver. (y) But during this problem, it had to be taken offline. You don't realize just how much we take for granted when everything is normal, but when it breaks, (n) :rolleyes2:
 
Yikes - so the emergency generator couldn't power your house when the main cable was cut? "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" -

 
Tom, the generator is controlled by a computer that senses any disruptions in the system and the electrician wouldn't work on the cables until the generator was taken totally off line, eliminating the possibility of it starting up automatically, a definite NO! Makes sense to me.
 
I would have physically pulled the meter there is no way for the generator to back feed then. Really simple. I was an electrician all my life I know what I’m talking about.
 
They did pull the meter, but, the service of the generator is tied in to is past the meter and will supply power to the house even if the meter is pulled! The generator has nothing to do with the meter when it's running, it's computer-controlled and senses the house and if the meter is pulled the computer will fire up the generator in 15 seconds since the house has no power! The reason the generator has to be offline during main power supply repairs. All three service lines were cut underground and to work on them with this generator not taken offline is insane.
 
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When you say “past the meter” do you mean past on the house side of the meter or the street side. Trust me I’m not trying to recommend anything dangerous. I did mention that I had been an electrician all my life and I’m still alive. There are a lot of old electricians and a lot of bold electricians but not a lot of old bold electricians.
 
20 KW Generac.

Generac.jpg
 
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