Electrician needed?

[Jim Kata]

I was visiting the 'rents this weekend (ok, so I was raiding their fridge), and I noticed that the power to the whole house would just shut off for about two seconds, and then turn back on. It did this about 3 times in the hour that I was there. My mother said that it had been happening for a few hours. The most I know about any of the inner workings of electricity in the home is how to turn on a light switch. So I'm really in the dark with this one (pun intended).

The house is about 20 years old and this problem has never happened before. My aunt lives on the street behind them and isn't having any problems.

Any suggestions or should they just shell out some dough for an electrician?

Thanks in advance.

[shakran]

call the power company. I'd guess it was something on their end - where the house connects to the main power line.

if it was your end, the power outages would most likely be caused by tripped breakers, and they wouldn't turn back on until you turned 'em on.

[Scorpion23]

I would go outside and check the point where the power lines come into your house. It's a slim chance, but my mom's house was having the same problem awhile back. It was caused by the support that kept the wire tight pulling out from the house. So instead of a large run of cable from the power pole to the house being supported by steel eye-bolts the main circuit-breaker outside was taking the weight of the wire.

This would cause the house to lose power for a few seconds everytime the wind blew the line around. Needless to say, this was not only inconveinent but also very dangerous.

In any case a call to the power company wouldn't hurt at all.

[shakran]

Scorpion23, we should mention that if your scenario is true, Jim should NOT attempt to fix it himself. The voltages out there are not something to mess around with