We lost the neutral line on top of one of the poles about 75 feet from our house on Friday, March 2nd at 2:45 pm. I was not home at the time but my wife told me the power was surging through the house with the lights getting extremely bright and then dim. It's typical of what happens under this circumstance. We lost a TV about 15 years ago when the neutral line broke.

About 7-8 hours later the rest of the neighborhood saw its power restored. Not us because, buried in the woods the way we are, we're on a line that no one else shares. We were at the bottom of the list in terms of priority for restoration.

On Sunday afternoon a rep from Eversource, our power company, came up to inspect the damage. I walked him the length of our line and pointed out the damage. He assured me he would have a team up to do the repairs within a couple of hours. After almost 5 hours, two lineman were knocking on our door. I walked them back to the damage and watched them inspect the line. Of course, by now, it's 7:30 pm and its pitch black in the woods.
The two lineman mumble to each other and turn to me, informing me that they were not equipped to restore the neutral line (they never mentioned that is was the neutral, they just said they couldn't do the work). They left saying they had no idea when another team would be able to reach out to us.

Multiple calls to the power company resulting in absolutely no satisfaction whatsoever. Watching the outage map revealed a slow but steady decline in the numbers of people without power. Sunday night passed into Monday, Monday night into Tuesday. At around 10 am on Tuesday morning a bucket truck with a single driver appeared in our driveway. He was an older gentleman. We walked back to where the damage was behind the house and he immediately told me he couldn't do the repair without a second man there to help. Something to do with using a ladder as opposed to a bucket. But, he assured me that he would call is local supervisor and have someone sent up asap. He was furious that the line wasn't repaired on Sunday night, asserting that anyone would have had the necessary equipment to do the repair. He also assured me that he would call later in the day to make sure that someone had been up to do the work.

I was out later in the afternoon. Driving up my driveway at around 3:00 pm I saw a pickup and a bucket truck in the driveway. I got out and walked around the back of the house where two linemen, both older gentlemen, were fast at work getting my power restored. When they saw me they started joking about the two jackasses that ran away from doing the job on Sunday night. They were done in minutes and power was back to my house.

All was good until about 27 hours later when the entire neighborhood went down, again. So, from early Wednesday evening until about an hour ago, we were without power. So, for the last seven days, I've had power to the house for that brief interlude between Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm tired of the "Bomb Cyclones," I'm tired of people who don't want to do their jobs but I'm thankful for the old timers that repaired my line and I'm thankful for a 13,000 watt Generac generator I bought 6 years ago. Without it, I'd have lost my mind.

 

Hi Paul

I know exactly how you feel. In the UK and here in France we are 'rural' dwellers and suffer power outages regularly due to 11KV overhead power lines and 440V transformers, so much so I invested in a used commercial 5 kVA diesel genset and new rotary changeover switch 15 years ago to keep all the essentials running, boiler, fridge freezer and lights etc and brought it all from the UK to France with me.

There is high risk as you know with a neutral loss which can cause really bad losses of equipment and due to power surges and power imbalances, not that I'm any expert in these matters.

I can relate a story about my so called 'affluent' UK neighbours, they noticed after storms in 1987 and 1990 in the UK that we had lights, power etc and asked whether we could have a genset between us all. I did a lot of work investigating the costs and feasibility and came up with a shared price for a 10kVA auto genset and cabling. They all backed out saying it was too expensive, c'est la vie, why moan to me that some have power and others don't then and the greatest irony was one neighbour even asked whether I would supply them with power for their TV, boiler and freezer you can imagine my answer.

 

This was the second time in the last twenty years that we lost the neutral line. The first time was really frightening. We were asleep when a tree that had been hanging over the line snapped. It took everything down with it. We awoke to a loud pop, pulsing lights and a loud humming sound! I ran to the circuit box and turned off the mains. Then I noticed a 32" TV has smoldering. I grabbed it and ran outside with it fearing it would catch fire. One surge protector that was one a wooden floor actually left burn marks on the wood beneath it. Overall, it was a harrowing experience.

We wound up recouping our loses from the power company because we had complained about the tree well in advance of the incident. They had a rep up to inspect the situation and agreed the tree must come down but they never sent anyone to do the work!

This latest incident occurred while I was not home. My wife called telling me to get home right away. She said the lights were pulsing and that she smelled smoke! I told her to hit the breakers and she did. The smoke was coming from another fried surge protector. We also lost the start relay and capacitor in our new refrigerator along with the evaporator fan motor. I never thought I'd need to put a refrigerator on a surge protector but it's on one now. Thankfully, that was the only casualty.

We may live in one of the richest states in America but we're in a rural area and the manner in which power is strung up, through the woods, to our home is no different than it would have been 100 years ago. Lately, and we're expecting another nor'easter tonight into tomorrow, we lose power every time the wind blows. The power infrastructure in CT is a joke. I have been speaking with my State Senator and Representative about the need to address our electrical infrastructure. I guess it's going to become a new cause for my wife and I to pursue.

 

Hi Paul

Good luck with the expected nor'easter winds. These rural places all seem to have 'ancient' power supplies and telephone infrastructures. Unfortunately we are all forgotten when it comes to upgrades and they only concentrate of the towns and cities. If possible get the power suppliers to put in some kind of MCCB auto breaker into the main switch system which, in theory, should automatically trip the main breaker in the event of the loss of a neutral or phase (we hope). A few years ago we were supplied on tri-phase power at 415V but when we paid for the new incomer we opted for mono-phase power at 240V. There is an inherent problem with tri-phase in that the phases all have to be approximately balanced or one phase or another will overheat. Fortunately we are on the French norm radial power system within the house which every circuit is protected by an individual MCCB and 30mAmp fault system and the system is also protected by a mains incomer switch rated at a 30mAmp fault rating. This set up is within the house in the utility room. There is another absolute breaker supplied by EDF sited in the outside garage which also has a fault breaker embedded in the mains breaker, however, I wouldn't like to rely solely on this breaker. When we moved into this house I discovered there was no earth (ground) system but the electrician installed one with a test point.

There is an inherent problem with the power suppliers operatives in that they don't see or choose to overlook many, to them, minor electrical problems as they are too used to dealing with HV supplies whilst not realising lower voltages also cause fires or damage.

 

I feel your pain Paul.....a few years ago the lights in the house were pulsating....I went outside and met my neighbor on the sidewalk, and In front of my house .....the power line was arcing about 3 feet....quite a show.....we shut everything off ( not in time) we called the power co. and about an hour later they sent a guy in a minivan wearing a necktie and a hardhat...he had a tough time getting to us cuz now the fire dept had the road blocked off and there were cops and ambulances there too....he stares up at the lightning bolt arcing on the line and says >> "yup, we'll have to get someone here to look at that.......3 hours after that, the line man showed up.....
so anyway .....I'm glad things are getting back to normal on Squash Hollow Rd....spring cant be far off