Ugly back feed from neighbor during power outage?

[Walt34]

BTW, I've been busy. I'm on hold for over 15 minutes at the power company to talk about this with them. I'll see if I get through and report back.

I think it was five or eight years ago, but when my UPS reported switching over to battery because the line voltage went to 146 volts, the only way I could reach a live human being at the power company was to pick the option for a line down on the ground. A VOM confirmed what the UPS was telling me so I shut everything off.

 

[Gumby]

Well, I did my duty and reported it.

The agent listened to my story, then said: "Hold on, I need to talk to a specialist."

After a few minutes she came back and said: "You were sharing your neighbor's generator, that's why that happened."

I mean, they probably don't know for sure, but it sounds like this fault is so common they just assume that's going to happen now.

The agent doesn't appreciate the danger that this poses. Maybe the person who she spoke with does understand the danger, and maybe the line crews expect this and deal with it, but that is not evident from the response. And if they have to deal with a line powered by back-feed from some guy's improperly installed generator, it will take them longer to restore power.

 

[JoeWras]

The agent doesn't appreciate the danger that this poses. Maybe the person who she spoke with does understand the danger, and maybe the line crews expect this and deal with it, but that is not evident from the response. And if they have to deal with a line powered by back-feed from some guy's improperly installed generator, it will take them longer to restore power.

Gumby, that's exactly how I felt. But I did my duty and reported it and she acknowledged a rouge generator. I feel like if I press further I'm being an obnoxious engineer.

BTW: I got through to a human by saying: "Poor quality power". Talking about an outage put me in a forever-loop of computers. I hate to say it, but I believe my agent was overseas, hence the possible lack of concern. Hey, I've seen those videos of heaters with bare wires right at the shower head*. Back feed? That's nothing... I guess.

Oh, one more thing. They have really put a lot of effort in segmenting the grid around here. They've put in all kinds of switches, line conditioners and lightning arrestors. This tree was on a main overhead feed that they probably can confidently isolate. But the point still stands if they have to work closer to the end of distribution: back feed is dangerous.

* - hot water done this way in some parts of the world

 

[Time2]

Big Clive does a tear down of an electric shower head.

 

[JoeWras]

Nice. Always love me some BigClive.

 

[sengsational]

I would have been interested in the voltage level when you saw the dim lights. I doubt I would have had the presence of mind to grab the "Kill-A-Watt" and plug it in somewhere, but I wonder what it would have measured. I wonder if you would have even been able to see an incandescent bulb glow with the voltage you had. One thing I've discovered is that LED bulbs will put out light with incredibly low voltage. This doesn't excuse a neighbor for putting self generated juice on the line, if that's what it was.

 

[Texas Proud]

The OP said it happened within 3 seconds of power going out and doesn't support the time required for a neighbor to start and plug a generator in. It will be interesting to hear what the cause is.

An automatic generator kicks in in about 5 seconds... I can see 3 secs really being 5...

 

[JoeWras]

Yeah, so you know, the power goes out and you are under pressure. It was 3, 5 or 10 seconds. I didn't have a stopwatch, kill-a-watt or meter handy. My goal was to shut it down because this didn't look healthy. The surprising one that worked was a motion-detect outdoor LED fixture, but only one of the two.

In retrospect, nothing else was working except a few (not all) LED lights and some wall-wart plug-ins like for my little spinning globe. And that one wasn't doing well. So yeah, the power I was getting was pretty feeble.

Maybe next power outage I'll do some careful measuring. Seriously.

 

[SecondAttempt]

Good point! Will do, if I can make it past their phone robot.

I've had luck calling the "new construction" number. That number is usually answered by a human and even though it usually isn't the right number, they tend to be more helpful than the general customer service number. "new construction" not "new service!"