Electrifying

I heard a noise in the night. It was a windy night and our hydro wires are right outside the bedroom window. They usually make some noise on a windy night, but this was different.

The next day while getting something from the shed I looked at the hydro wires and saw what was causing the noise

The insulator (middle left) had broken which released the strain cable from the under eves bracket (top centre). Now the power wires are taking the load of the line to the pole. This didn’t seem too good so I called hydro thinking they would come out a fix it.

Well, they came out, had a look and then informed me about this!

Both the red power wires have cracks in the insulation right around the wire. It’s original wire, about 58 year old. The hydro guys said they could re-attach the cable to the bracket but there would be about a 50% chance the wire would break and/or a lot of insulation would come off. In either case they would turn off the power to the house. In fact they were only OK with leaving the power on in it’s current condition if we called an electrician today and had it repaired ASAP. Turns out the wire from the meter to the top of the mast where it connects to the hydro line is the home owners responsibility.

Other Hydro guy good news was that our mast in not up to the current code which requires the conduit to go through the roof to a mast head above the roof as opposed to a bracket on the eves. However, we might be “grandfathered”. If we need to come up to code he estimated $3,000+, yikes!

So I check around for a recommendation on an electrician and make the call. He seems quite good and ready to do the work. I send my contact info an some pictures and he offers to stop over tonight and have a look.

In response to one of the pictures he says the soffit will need to come off. I ask Scott to stop by that evening and he removes the soffit for me.

While he’s here the electrician arrives and checks out the wiring. He’s already checked with the City of Winnipeg electrical inspector and I’ll be allowed to just replace the wire from the meter to the mast head, the way less expensive option. With permits and coordination the repair should get done in about a week. Hopefully, before the wires break which would be a whole new scheduling problem.