Electrical power burnout claim

[Karl_T]

Woke up this morning and made coffee. A minute or so later - no coffee. breaker had popped and panel smelled of burnt electrical. reset breaker and it popped immediately. Not awake yet, just moved maker to another circuit. A while later there was another large POP. smoke out panel and small drink cooler circuit gone. Investigation showed this cooler was burnt out. A very short time later the circuit on the mini split popped and it was gone too.

Pulled VOA meter out and I had 160 volts on right sight power to ground and 105 volts on left side to ground.

Went outside to see if power voltages same at entrance, it was. Looked up and seen this:




So, pulled the mains and called the utility. They replaced the entrance cable and all is well.

EXCEPT we now got a dead ice maker, dead mini split, dead cooler. Is there any way we got a claim against the power company?

BTW here's the wires all but burnt through. How does one successfully file a claim?

 

[markba633csi]

You probably have to sue them and it would cost a fortune. I had a similar thing happen and lost 2 televisions and a radio. Ended up just fixing them myself.. Looks like your wires had corroded from the inside- I wonder how? Is that aluminum wire?

 

[Jake M]

The first question is "who's wire is that?" If it's YOUR wire, then it's homeowner's insurance. If it's the power company's wire, call up their customer service number and they'll be able to direct you to the right place. Probably "tech support" type place where you'll talk with a technician nail down the nature of the situation, tell a person (besides the line crew) that you called in with your voltages, and they'll send you to whoever wants to take the claim. Or maybe they're good enough to have their documents interlinked between departments by now... Anyhow, if it's the power companies wires that failed, they're typically really good about it. It might be a "get it fixed and send in receipts" type arrangement, as they're not in the appliance repair and replacement business, but we're real prone to "floated grounds" on my one line "branch" from the main grid. It's never been an issue getting stuff replaced, so long as there was a documented repair to their distribution system.

 

[ChazzC]

Big problem these days is getting through to a person. However, I have had good results from Power & Cable people once I actually talked with someone, and in most cases they thanked me.

 

[tq60]

We had pg&e put analyzer on the pole, and they stated pole had issues but did not repair it.

Months later, a bunch of stuff went stupid, and a simple claim filed. Since they had a record of bad pole, it was easy, a few grand in repairs and replacements.

Most power companies have a web claim process.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

 

[woodchucker]

You are lucky you have a house.
Around here a transformer was being worked on, they disconnected power, when they restored it, a bunch of houses burned to the ground.
apparently they had hooked up the transformer wrong, and higher voltage went to the homes.
I think everyone survived. Not animals..