A Very Frosty Start to 2018 -- No Heat in an Extreme Cold Alert

I ended up having a very frosty start to my new year. New Years Day I was up around 4am with the intention of getting some writing done before I attended the New Years Day Levee at the Legion.

What’s a levee you ask? Well, the short answer to that is it is social time for people to welcome in the new year. We gather to great friends and neighbours, maybe even make some new friends, to tip a beverage to the new year and enjoy some food.

Within minutes of me putting on my coffee and getting ready to make my breakfast, several circuits in the house kicked out. They took not only lights but my heating as well. So, here I was in the middle of an extreme cold alert without heat in my house.

When a more reasonable hour to call someone came around I put a call into a Legion friend who is a retired electrician. We talked about what happened and came to the conclusion that I could have had more than one fuse kick out simultaneously.

What a dilemma, New Years Day and I needed fuses. I pondered calling the owner of the local hardware and asking him if he’d open to sell me some. Small communities sometimes you can do things like that. Before I got to that point, I decided to seek other options.

So, I set out to find the convenience stores in about a 20 mile radius that were open on a holiday and carried fuses. It took me a while but I scrounged up enough to completely replace the fuses on my panel. Still no joy. All I had functioning was a light in one bedroom and two outlets in the same room.

I knew I wasn’t going to get an electrician out on the holiday. Well, not without paying big dollars. So, I opened the water taps to drain the lines, shut down the heaters so they would not fire right up when I did get power again and headed off to the Levee. It was warm there.

By the time I returned the temperature in the house was down to 40F. Some friends had offered for me to spend the night at their place but, I wasn’t about to leave my cats on their own in those temps. I placed calls to a couple of electricians and left messages about the situation with the hope I would get a call back first thing in the morning.

I settled in for the night under several fleece blankets.

It was actually quite toasty under there. Needing to visit the washroom was not so toasty. Eventually one of the cats caught on that it was warmer to be under the cover with me than on her own. The tom wasn’t as easily convinced.

By morning the temp was down to 30F in the house. I could see my breath. Thankfully, one of the electricians called just after 7am and sent one of his guys out right away. It didn’t take him long to locate the problem and set it right.

He figured with the heavy draw the extreme cold was taking and then I added coffee brewing and my countertop oven to a circuit that was already running a utility heater, it was enough to trip not just the fuse it was on but the whole panel.

He did some checking and we moved some items around to better balance my electrical load. Like moving the counter top oven to a plug that is barely used.

So, a day later, it is warm enough in the house that I can type without my fingers freezing up. The cold alert has been lifted and the temp is a bit more moderate at about 20F. My water pump is still frozen and as I write this I’m expecting the plumber to arrive to get that resolved and running water back in the house.

I picked up a jug of water when I was out yesterday so I was able to make coffee this morning, wash some dishes cook some breakfast.

So, how was your new years?

Until Next Time — Just Steem on

If you like this, please follow me and upvote the post.

If you’d like to see the other days I’ve posted, just visit my profile