It started with a storm.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a lot of old trees in the neighborhood so after a storm one of the tasks is to check the yard to see if there are branches down or any damage has occured.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time, it was both. A branch had fallen onto the power line to the house and was still hanging there. The line wasn\u2019t down or broken and we hadn\u2019t lost power, but it was hanging low and pulled away from the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t approach it – I\u2019ve read the inserts in the utility bill – and called Ohio Edison. They sent a guy out within a couple of hours and he got the branch down, but said I would need to contact an electrician to get the line re-attached to the house. And to do it soon in case there was another storm that might take it down the rest of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was a Friday and over the weekend we tried to find the name the electricians that had replaced the fusebox for us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I called them on Monday, the number was out of service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did some research and found another local company that had good reviews, then called them up. At their request, I submitted pictures of the connection point and a zoomed out shot of the area – and a picture of the fuse box for some reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got a compliment back on the quality of my photos and they said they would call with a quote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t hear back for a few days and followed up. They said they were working on the quote and would let me know, but I gave up a few days later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I called a third electrician and the phone rang and rang – and then connected me with an A.I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uh-oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did my best to explain the problem and it offered an appointment for Thursday morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few hours later I got a call back from a human at the company who corrected what they had for my name and the nature of the problem – and they rescheduled for a real appointment since the A.I. had lied. Now, it was the following Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When that Tuesday rolled around I met the electrician when he arrived. While all this was going on, we\u2019d also realized the attic fan had been disconnected. I hadn\u2019t been able to get that going so when he arrived we checked that out first . He didn\u2019t do much more diagnosis than I had but determined the fan itself was broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That long-ago home inspection is looking more and more like a scam. Costly wanker…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, back outside and he looked at the connection point – and decided he couldn\u2019t do anything with that. He told me Ohio Edison would need to come out and run a new longer line – in his opinion – and include a loop to connect to the house and reduce the tension. And to reconnect the \u201cweatherhead\u201d to the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then he charged me $150.00 for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I paid the bill – slightly more educated, but cranky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I called Ohio Edison again and navigated their A.I. system to get to a person. I re-reported the problem and they gave me a new reference number – but no estimate on the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, a technician showed up and I showed him the problem. But, he was a \u201cforestry guy\u201d and what I needed was a \u201ctroubleman\u201d or a \u201cloopman\u201d: I took quick notes on what he was telling me to ask for and he was on his way with an apology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I called Ohio Editson again to update the DR number – whatever that is – and got a new number and the promise of a new technician. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That afternoon, a guy showed up with a truck and a cherry picker. He examined the problem and said he could fix it and it wouldn\u2019t take long. I moved my car so he could put his truck into place and I kept an eye on the lift. When it started back down I met him at the truck and he showed me the fix he had made – but noted a lot of squirrel damage to the neutral line. We were good for the time being, but he would send a crew out in a couple of hours to run a new neutral line from the pole to the house. This was early afternoon so I expected they would be back by early evening at the latest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I updated Jim when he got home and as time went on I figured I\u2019d instead see them the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, around 9:30 that night, 4 huge cherry picker trucks rolled up to the house and parked along the street. Jim had been out for a walk and met me at the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think some people are here to see you,\u201d he said and I went out to meet the crew. I guided them by flashlight around the backyard and explained the problem. They brought back ladders and cable, then set to work. We had the backyard floodlight on and it helped when they cut the power and our generator came back on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We waited in the house until there was a clicking sound that told us the power was restored. The generator stopped shortly after that and I met the crew outside. While they were wrapping up, I responded to the neighborhood group text about what was happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new neutral was in place, the line no longer slack with the right amount of tension with a loop of wire, and the power back on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thanked the team and went back inside.\u00a0 I did some checking and realized I\u2019d been after this a full month between all the wrong answers and false starts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, that project is finally done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I have to do something about that fan\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It started with a storm.\u00a0 There are a lot of old trees in the neighborhood so after a storm one of the tasks is to check the yard to see if there are branches down or any damage has occured.\u00a0\u00a0 This time, it was both. A branch had fallen onto the power line to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3257,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions\/3257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}