Way OT Hydro Service!!

[55 Fargo]

Hi all, last night around 11:00 PM, the electricity went off in our house, since we are rural, our water and sewer are on this power source, plus the AC was need last night as it was warm and muggy all night.I just thought it was because of an expected Thunderstorm, but all the neigbours down the road had power, we reported it about 11:30 PM. By 12:30 AM.Manitoba Hydro had a lineman out, he checked the transformer, on the pole, then another pole on the road, he pulled out a long telescopic pole and removed a fuse link, this was done in the dark with only a beam of light from the top of the truck, sure enough he replaced it, he actually got it on the first try, then within minutes the wind picked up, the lighting and rain, talk about luck, and what great service from Manitoba Hydro, in fact there is so much Hydro here, we could probably look after us and California together.........Fred

[Plymouthy Adams]

we suffered three severe brown outs over the space of last evening in my area...reasons unknown..actually I personaly think it was load power adjustment via RF signal as the root..these brown outs were about 30 minutes apart..right on the schedule of power grid load management...not good for computer and AC systems...

[Norm's Coupe]

Tim

Don't know about your area. However several years ago the backup battery on our computer would keep beeping several times a day. The beeping is a warning that the power is off. Even noticed the lights dimming and sometimes even blinking from time to time. After making sure the problem wasn't in my own house, I called the electric company and complained about it. They said no one else in the area had complained. (this was going on for at least 6 months or so when I finally complained).

The electric company sent someone out within the hour to check out the problem. First he checked inside my house and couldn't find any problems inside. Then he checked the meter and still couldn't find a problem. Then he went to all the houses that are connected to the same transformer I'm on at the pole. They all said they didn't notice any problems like I was having. So.....he then ask permission to hook up a computer box to my meter for a week to check for any interruptions. Told him to go ahead, I wanted the problem fixed. Week later they picked up the tracking box and took it back to check out what was recorded during the week. Called back a couple of days later and said they would have to replace the transformer on the pole. The computer readout said the power was unstable from the transformer, so they were going to replace it. Also stated that the transformer was about 40 years old and back then people didn't need as much power in their homes. The transformer was too small to handle the load demand of today.

So.........if you have problems all the time with brownouts, etc. you might have the electric company check your transformer. No telling how old that thing is.

[Plymouthy Adams]

I should have mentioned that my neighbor came over complaing about the same thing and called a 1/2 mile down the road at a friend's and they reported same condition...Have seen isolated cases where x-former or x-former grounds flaot and flux..but this was the area it seems...have watched them run my power up to proper voltage via radio signal and my voltmeter attached to the power..as I was on the phone with them.

[greg g]

Aging infrastructure is plaguing the electrical grid also. we mived into this house in October of 1990. since that time, we have had at least 4 service outages a year. I consider an outage to be anything that lasts more than two hours. This quantity ia about 3 times the experience with out other 2 homes with service by the same provider. About 3 years ago we got notices that there would be a series of planned outages scheduled in order for the company to upgrade the service in our area. These outages never happened nor did the repairs, and in the meantime the utility was sold to a company from the UK. They have changed the utility from a producer /supplier to a purchaser /supplier. This year we got a check for about 250 dollars to reimburse us for our incinvenience over the past few years. the state utility commission has fined them millions for failure to provide consistantly reliable service, so they pay the fines, and send out rebates which it is estimated to be about 400 times less expensive than repairing the service grid. Yesterday from about 2 to 6 PM, the lights were dimming off and on, and my compressor wouldn't restart automatically on the pressure switch. And for this we get to pay 80 cents per kwh, and 90 cents a day in delivery charges. And I can't for the life of me figure out how two people can use 85 KWH per month seeing as how we only use our AC when it is absolutely necessary to keep the living space at 76 degrees.

[Norm's Coupe]

Greg, sounds like it may be time to buy a good sized generator. I thought about doing the same the other day. Let it go though because it's rare we have an outage, even in storms. Only reason we lost power a few weeks ago for about 4 hours is because a tree feel on the lines in the area. Not due to a storm though. Was a nice warm day, no breeze. Guess the tree was either rotten or insects got it from the inside out and made it fall.

[55 Fargo]

Greg, we are very fortunate in Manitoba, as it has many Hydro Electric Dams, and more are planned, we really could power much of the USA, eventually that is part of a big longterm plan. Right now, our electricity, is 5.5 cents per Kwh. I costs us about $2000 per year total, for our heat electricity. This means water pressure too, our furnace, A/C, hot water, lights, heat for garage, stove,2 fridges, 2 large upright freezers and an electric dryer. I am not bragging or rubbing it in to anybody, but we are lucky in this part of Canada for this utility. Our summer pwer consumption record for this province was on July 25 th, consuption was 3404 Mega watts, our record winter consumption was on February 5th at 4265 Meg watts. Don't forget Manitoba has a population of only 1100000, and 800000 live in the Winnipeg Area, so thats the scoop for us...........Fred ps service and equipment is very good here

[greg g]

most of our electricity produced here is hydo, and most of the stuff comes from small old paid for 100 times generators, the rest is Nuclear. They just charge whatever they can and the public utilities commission will rubber stamp.

then if course 60% goes on the grid and get sold to NY City and they will pay through their a$$e$ for any and all they can get.

[1just4don]

Norm,

Was that tree that fell out of the blue a maple or cottonwood?? Most of them that fall for no reason are around here!!

[55 Fargo]

Certain Varities of Maple, Manitoba Maple (Box Elder), Poplars (Aspen), Cottonwoods (these get monstrous around here), Willow Trees, I find these are prone to damage in storms and high winds

[Norm's Coupe]

Really don't know what kind of tree it was that fell. It fell about a mile from here and I didn't find out what caused the problem until the next day. Fell on one of the main lines that feed to our neighborhood. I didn't drive by that area for a couple of days afterward and by that time the tree was gone.