Johnson City Electricity Issue (Franklin: appliances, house, heat pump)

[tonypitt]

Has anyone with Johnson City Power Board experienced problems with electricity recently?

When I came home this afternoon, several of my breakers had been tripped. I have all of my electronics equipment on battery backup/surge protectors. All 3 of these boxes I have throughout my home had been tripped to the point that they required a reset of their circuit breaker. I've also noticed some minor brown outs lately.

I live close enough to the Power Board that I can literally see their main building from my back porch. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced any power anomalies?

[mbmouse]

Hmm...We just had to replace the breaker on our heat pump...not sure if that correlates with your issue or it just went bad? Come to think of it, we had to replace the breaker in the panel that runs the drier about a month ago too. Never though of it as a power co. issue, just older breakers.

[Bailey.]

There was an entire section of N State of Franklin that lost power a couple weeks ago for a couple hours. From the Shops at Franklin to the post office across from Jason's deli.

All the traffic lights were out as well, so I took as many right turns as possible, made it to Roan, and went home. Not something I wanted to deal with.

[tonypitt]

Where I lived previously (Pensacola, FL) the power company would pretty regularly have "dirty electricity" that would wreak havoc with equipment. I suppose they may have been trying to improve over time, but it never seemed much of a priority.

A few years ago they rolled out a new pricing model that worked based on specialized monitoring equipment placed at the meter box. Ironically, customers who opted into that program were required to sign up for whole house surge suppression and have that equipment installed as well. I always thought it odd that when it came to the power company's equipment they were very concerned about it in that way, but apparently not concerned enough to fix it for everyone.

[mexicomike]

For what it's worth. We have/had a lot of problems in Mexico with the power. Supposedly, appliances made for the local market have to be able to handle fluctuations from 95 to 135 volts. Additionally, we also have frequent (and prolonged) power outages. A lot of folks use small "regulators" to try and keep the voltages within reasonable limits. They are inexpensive (here) and I guess they do the job. We lost three microwaves within the first couple of years after arriving here, but, none after going the regulator route. One caveat, the regulators require that you have a "good" ground in your outlet(s)---not every outlet that has the third "hole" for the ground is actually grounded. You can get a small tester at Walmart, Radio Shack, etc. for five or 6 dollars.

As usual, "the previous information is for general guidance only, consult a professional electrician for actual resolution of your problems. Past performance is not an indication of future performance. Do not try this at home. Etc., etc.." Mike