Electricity

Tech, newfangled, cranky old lady

So apparently I have reached a new level of cranky old lady. I don’t know how to fix the electrical breaker when it needs to be reset.

And yes I still call it the fuse box.

The electric in our finished basement stopped working.

Well, I thought I knew how to reset the breaker. But, apparently I don’t. I didn’t switch it so that it “clicked.” And by not having it “click in,” even though I thought it did, the electric in our finished basement didn’t go back on.

So over the weekend I frantically called the electrician to come and fix what was wrong in the basement. But of course they don’t work on the weekend, apparently no electrician does. When I spoke to them on Monday it was going to take a week to come out. Yes they apparently are very busy.

Meanwhile, the husband was worried about an electrical fire in the house and slept down in the basement so he would know if something bad started to happen. And yes, we have fire alarms and CO2 detectors all over the house. but that didn’t assuage his nervousness.

Nope, we had no idea what was going on. In all honesty we were totally baffled by what was going on. I begged the electrician to come out sooner and I did mention about the husband’s concerns. They said they would come out beforehand if they could.

Luckily, 2 hours later I get a call that they are able to come right away since a job got done earlier than expected. I thanked them every which way to Sunday.

When the youngmen showed up, we explained what happened. I told them I tried to reset the breaker, but it didn’t work so we kept the breaker off for those outlets because we didn’t want the electric current to continue to go to an outlet. We were worried if there was something really wrong what the electric current going to bad wires would do. Again worried about an electrical fire.

So the young electrician, went over to the breaker and reset the outlets. And they worked. Apparently, he “clicked” everything just right.

The electricians did wonder if we had had some kind of electric surge that tripped the breakers. Interestingly enough, we had a low power issue instead of a high power issue. One day last week, the lights in the house were very dim. I actually thought I was having issues with my eyes. (When you get to a certain age, you think everything weird is simply your body breaking down.)

Then I realized that it could be an issue with our electric and called the electric company. They actually sent someone out in a few hours (we were so shocked!). Turns out it was the transformers on our block. The repairman was actually surprised that no one else called it in. Meanwhile, the electric company went and fixed the transformers. So our electricians thought that that may have caused the breakers to trip when the electric went back on full throttle.

Honestly, they really couldn’t figure it out why it happened. However, they did recommend we move some items to other outlets. And we did.

They did check all the affected outlets to make sure that none of the wires had corroded. Of course, they couldn’t check the entire system without breaking into the wall, and happily that wasn’t really necessary at all. But, he did mention that if we ever remodeled the basement we should have the electric redone too. It is real old timey electric, but safe and works fine. (My house was built in 1954.)

So what did I learn from this event?

Apparently I have reached the stage of life where I do not know how to use modern technology. I have officially become the grandparent who waits for the children to come over in order to reset the clock on their VCR.

And for you younglings a VCR is the thing we used to use to show tapes of movies on our televisions. Tapes are the things we used to record movies. Televisions (yes I know you do know what a TV is) are the things we used to use to watch shows and movies instead of streaming on our tablets.

In the end, I called the electrician’s office and thanked them for sending out their people so soon and made sure they had what they needed to bill us properly.

I am sure these young people had a good laugh at our expense. But it’s ok. We were laughing at ourselves, too. I really never thought I would get to the stage of life where this newfangled darn tootin whippersnapper technology would cause a consternation.

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