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Randy Cassingham's BlogHistorical Details and Author's Notes from This is True®
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Mystery Power Outage
We have a pretty complex power system at our house in the country: critical systems (heat, fridge/freezer, and the office, including the computer network) are on backup power so we can run them for days in case of a power outage. The worst so far has been just a few hours, most recently when a pole on the edge of our property snapped when it was really, really cold (apparently the pole had rotted, and then couldn't take the cold). So I was really perplexed when I got an alert last night that the backed-up circuits had failed ...yet the rest of the house was on. Huh?!
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A neighbor who's quite an experienced handyman came right over when we called from Las Vegas* this morning, and my assistant led him to the garage where the switching equipment is. He's not really familiar with how it all works, so I was describing it to him on the phone. A circuit leads to the backup system, and from there it leads back to a subpanel where the backed-up circuits are. After hearing how it works, he said that the main breaker for the subpanel was off (not tripped, but turned off). He flipped it back on; sure enough, the heat came right on (it was just about freezing there today, and the heat had been off all night.
How is that possible that it could be turned off, Kit and I wondered. Once the network was running again, I could log in to the security camera system: sure enough, no one had approached the house before the network dropped out. Then it hit me: there is "someone" in the garage. We have barn cats that keep the rodent population down around the house. We don't have a barn, so they stay in the garage, and are in when we're out of town. They were probably bored and bouncing around the garage like mad, playing. The only thing I can figure is they were playing near the breaker switch, and knocked it to "off". There's precedent for that: when we were on another trip, we came back to no heat (but that wasn't a power problem). Turns out the cats had pulled a temperature sensor out of the boiler, presumably by playing with the wires that came out of the sensor. That's now taped in nicely. I guess I need to secure the breaker switch for the backup power, too. Crazy cats!
*Kit and I are attending the Affiliate Summit. The twice-yearly event is probably the biggest gatherings of online businesspeople held. They have one in New York or vicinity each August, and one in Vegas each January, and it's an amazing gathering: there are 4,125 attendees at this one. I come to network and get new ideas from the many presentations. If you're doing business online (not just as an "affiliate"), you should definitely check it out.
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Most Recent Comments
Posted by Bruce, Chilliwack BC on January 25, 2010:
Easiest is to tape a small clear plastic box over the breaker switch - hockey tape is good and thick and easy to pull open if you fold a bit to make a pull tab - just make sure it is small enough so the cats cannot pull it easily also. My 20 year old fax machine has a nickel taped over the autoreceive button since the cats would step on it and turn it off.
Posted by Dave - Harrisburg, PA on February 4, 2010:
As Ron in New Jersey described, there actually are breaker locks that attach to the handle of the circuit breaker. These are intended to prevent exactly what you experienced; the accidental switching off a circuit breaker protecting a 'critical' circuit. They have a small screw with a clamp that prevents manual switching of the breaker, but do not interfere with the breaker's internal tripping mechanism in case of circuit overload. The only (minor) inconvenience is you'd need to use a small screwdriver to remove the lock should you need to reset the breaker if it trips. If the breaker would trip, you just need to remove the clamp, turn the breaker to the off position, return it to the on position (after finding and correcting the reason for it tripping, of course) and then re-attaching the clamp. They are used where I work on numerous 'critical' circuits.
Posted by joebanana, So. Cal. on February 27, 2010:
I don't think so. Have you ever turned off a two pole breaker? It's not like you can just tap it, and it goes off. It takes a little effort, and a thumb helps a lot. Unless your "cats" are tossing around your weight set, I don't think they "turned off" that breaker. Just go try it yourself.
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I'm well aware of how much pressure it takes to turn off a 20 amp breaker. Each one of the cats weighs plenty more than that. -rc