My family was traveling and I was home with the dog for a few days. On one of those nights, I experienced a power issue, which I wrote up in a root cause analysis.
Symptoms: I woke up early in the morning around 430a to a house that felt warmer and quieter than it should. I figured it was a power outage which is unfortunately not rare in my area. I got up to evaluate and as I walked down the hall, I heard some of the kid’s fans running. I then went downstairs and some lights were working and some were not. The HVAC was not functional. I checked the breaker panel and didn’t see anything in the off or tripped position. Meanwhile, I’m hearing noises like a rodent crawling around and started suspecting large-scale critters having chewed through the power cables. Nothing is making sense and I’m tired and cannot debug the system.
Root Cause: It turns out the critter was our mean cat just doing nocturnal cat stuff. The power turned out to be on the other side of the meter. Just beyond the main box (those big green boxes on the street) one of the two 110V cables that feed the house popped at 338a. The power company showed it to me and it must have been weak or nicked because it looked like white goo where there should have been braided cable. Since houses need 220V, you have two 110’s and they get balanced on your breaker with both feeding the appliances that need 220, so you get an effect of some things working and some things not.
Remediation: Luckily this was entirely a power company problem and they fixed it up quickly with a temporary “power saver”. It looks like a two-foot metal box that sits in front of your power meter and turns 110 into two 110’s. They will dispatch a crew to bury a new cable within a few weeks.