June 5, 2007

Breakers Replaced

We have power again! After speaking with the supervisor, Diane, at the PG&E service planning office things moved forward pretty well. I'd previously had problems being shuttled back and forth between various people, and having a hard time getting people to call me back. Around 8:45am, one of the field technicians came out and took the meter off the panel, cutting power to the panel. Our electrician came out and replaced the bad breakers, and then in the afternoon a different technician came out to reattach the meter. Everything is working again, so we can cook, do laundry, use the garage, and turn on the lights at night.

This is just a temporary solution. The breakers are going to get worn down again because the current draw is too high. Using two or more major appliances, like the stove and the dryer, at the same time pushes current draw very close to 100A. Plus, we have other things on like lights, and the aquarium, and computers. So for now we are only using one major appliance at a time. We'll do laundry at night. That should help prevent drawing more than 100A, and keep the breakers going a little longer.

PG&E tells me within a few weeks they can get the contract and other paperwork to us, so we can go ahead with upgrading the panel to 200A. I'm still a little concerned about how much it's going to cost. All they will really have to do is pull the new cable through the conduit and energize it. Cost of materials would be the cable, and then some labor costs for actually pulling the cable and attaching it. But I suspect the majority of other costs will be related to all of the paperwork and bureaucracy that was involved in just getting them to do that.

Posted by josuah at June 5, 2007 10:51 PM UTC+00:00

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