At the mercy of power surges and I'm not an electrician

October 9, 2007 5:08 PM

When it rains / storms our power inevitably blinks out (usually comes right back online in a few seconds) and we have lost 1 TV and another one is now behaving erratically. Need help coming up with a plan of action.

I think spikes / surges are causing 'electronic rust' and slowly killing our appliances. We didn't have 'proper' surge protectors that are recommended for the types of things that are going to be plugged into them with indicator lights to indicate that the surge protectors are still functioning.
Aside from getting those, I wanted to call the power company and report that it seems like the power blinks out practically every time it rains. If we got a technician to come and look at the lines outside is there something in particular we should get them to check?
Should we get an electrician to check anything in our house?
If there are frequent power blinks and there is nothing the hydro company can do about it should we consider getting a 'whole home' surge protector? I was thinking it would be the only way to protect major appliances since you cant plug them in to standard surge protectors.
Do we need to consider 'line conditioners'? Anything else?

posted by dino terror to home & garden (8 comments total)

For your computer you may want to get a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply).

I'd ask the power company, and if that's not occurring across the board (and I doubt it is; that'd be a really bad thing for the company if it was) then I'd get the house looked at by a competent electrician.
posted by DMan at 5:11 PM on October 9, 2007

You can put the TV on a UPS as well. It's really a good idea for any valuable electronics if you live in a brownout-prone area.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:13 PM on October 9, 2007

When we had this problem, and I called the power company, they sent someone that very night, at 1:00 a.m., even; I think the big concern was that mini-outages like that can mean there is arcing somewhere along the line, which can be dangerous. In any case, you're paying for power, and you have a right to have uninterrupted power (and their people are well paid), so they should be really cool about it. When the guy came to our place, he hooked up a meter to the switchbox and could see the problem right away; and then it was just a matter of tracking it to the lines at the pole.
posted by troybob at 5:38 PM on October 9, 2007

Standard practice where I live is that you unplug any electronics from the wall during storms, if you want to keep them. There are, of course, insurance options. The power around here browns out all the time - when it's hot, when there's a thunderstorm, and randomly. Just a fact of life hereabouts.

At a very minimum, get properly-rated surge protectors on any valuable electronics; a UPS if uninterrupted (as well as smooth) power is of value to you (mostly useful for computers, etc).

Calling the power company is potienally a worthwhile idea; they may or may not charge you, and may or may not replace your equipment; but it will alert them to a possible problem (if this isn't normal power behaviour in your area). Also ask them for advice on preventing further equipment damage. And don't use applicances you value during a storm.
posted by ysabet at 5:51 PM on October 9, 2007

Call the power company. It's fairly common for ceramic/glass insulators on the pole to crack or break down insulation value due to weathering, and then arc during wet or windy weather, or for distribution transformers to develop mechanical problems, like loose, buzzy laminations in their iron cores. Often, you may even notice electrical interference to over the air radio and TV signals, or in vary bad cases, audible noises (buzzing, hissing, crackling) when standing near the pole.

One practical check for bad pole hardware on wooden utility poles is simply to take a portable AM radio, tune it for "white noise" between stations, and then tap the poles near the base with a 2 or 3 pound hammer, so as to "shiver" the pole enough to shake its mounted hardware a bit. Poles with bad insulators will typically put out a burst of static, and may even exhibit audible arcing. Obviously, there's some risk involved in doing this, if the pole hardware is badly degraded, and you don't need to go whacking every pole on your street. But I've done this to hundreds of wooden poles, with excellent results in finding bad pole hardware. (I used to do this a lot while working as a broadcast engineer in Community Relations for a TV station. We tracked reports from viewers of reception problems, and found that working with utility companies could often materially improve reception of our signal for whole neighborhoods.)

Power companies are usually good about finding and repairing these kinds of problems, because they have a duty to minimize RF interference, as well as for safety reasons cited by previous posters, and to minimize false trips of their pole breakers, and damage to transformers and power factor correction capacitors in their distribution network. Sometimes, it takes more than one visit to a location to find bad pole hardware with subtle defects, and some crews just elect to replace everything on the pole as a troubleshooting method.
posted by paulsc at 6:28 PM on October 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

If I remember correctly, surge protectors don't last forever - they're kind of like bicycle helmets in that one nasty accident renders them unusable thereafter. So, simply sticking all your appliances on surge protectors may mean you'll be replacing the protectors a lot (or you'll find that they stop working after awhile). A UPS is a great idea.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:20 PM on October 9, 2007

Thirding the UPS suggestion. Surge protectors only protect electronic equipment from overvoltage, not undervoltage; since both can occur as a result of faulty wiring or bad electrical service, you're better off covering both angles. As long as it isn't too big a TV, you can probably find a UPS with a nice warranty/equipment guarantee for less than $150. As an added bonus, most UPSs will audibly click on when the wall current dips below a certain threshold (~90% of spec, IIRC), and you might be amazed at how frequently that happens, even when there's no rainstorm. I had a dorm room in college with awful wiring, and I was finally able to get physical plant to listen to me when I pointed out how often voltage was dipping below acceptable levels for no reason (which, as troybob pointed out, is probably indicative of line trouble somewhere).
posted by Mayor West at 5:22 AM on October 10, 2007

Hmm, interesting tips, thanks!
posted by dino terror at 11:14 AM on October 10, 2007