Almost Had Us A Fire

Helena, MT  H 94  L 59

Yep – we were really lucky.

Monday night, Skitz needed to go out in the middle of the night and we noticed that the power was off. We weren’t sure if it was just us or everybody else but since we didn’t need any power while we were sleeping, decided it could wait til morning for Jim to check out. When Jim checked the surge guard, he found that the voltage had dropped to 107 it should be 110 to 120. By the way – if you don’t have a surge guard, I highly recommend that you get one. It just saved us from losing everything electrical in the rig.Don called the Power Company and the guy came out with his bucket truck. As you know, we are hooked up to electric on my BIL’s lot. There used to be a mobile home here and the electrical meter base and all that stuff has to be about 50 to 60 years old.

Front of the unit:

This is what the guy found. This is what is behind the dial that shows your meter usage. Notice all the burnt wire on the left lower side.  Once again, if you don’t have a surge guard, you really do need one.

Then we found out that this part of the whole set-up is the owner’s responsibility, not the power company. He disconnected the power at the top of pole by using his bucket truck. I missed that with my camera. When everything else is replaced, they will come back out and hook it all up again.

It is amazing how much work is involved in getting this fixed. You have to get a permit. Sounds easy – yeah right! When they pulled up the actual address of this lot the records showed it’s in the city limits. But we’re not in town, we’re in the county. That means that the city and the county have to get this straightened out before the permit can be issued.

And all the new rules – we have to have two ground rods eight feet long, at least six feet apart, put in the ground. It’s in the 90’s and they are pounding the rods.

The conduit that runs up the pole has to be 6 inches away from the pole so you need special spacers to hold it in place. Originally they were told they had to have a outlet box with a 20amp outlet with GFI for some reason. Meant another trip back down to the power company office to explain that we just need a 30 amp RV hook up.

We had a nice discussion about the fact that I will not let either of the guys install the conduit up to the top of the pole. They did agree with me that it would probably be stupid of them to try. So we will hire somebody younger with a bucket truck to take care of that for us.

Then they need to go buy all the necessary parts. Everything has to be replaced because it is so old nothing meets codes. So Jim was busy this morning taking all the old stuff down off the pole.

The Home Depot receipt shows a 125A Meter Main Outdoor, a 30 AMP Travel Trailer Panel, a Breaker GE 30A 2-Pole, Rigid Conduit Nipple, and some Raintight Hubs. Means nothing to me.

Found an electrician who will be out in the morning to help get everything installed and up to specs. Then hopefully the guy from the power company can come out and certify that everything is good to go.

I can’t imagine how we would have survived this heat without our generator. It may be noisy but it runs the A/C and that’s all I cared about when it hit 92 in the rig. Both Scooter and I had our tongues hanging out.

I’ll let you know how tomorrow goes. Wish us luck.