My power company sucks!

I know that being a flashaholic I should probably welcome a power outage here and there like many other CPF members do but I have to admit that I HATE POWER OUTAGES!!! I think the reason is that I am at the mercy of ComEd and we have had such a problem in my area every summer for the past so many summers I can't even remember now how long this has been going on. Every time it storms whether it's bad or not the freakin' power goes out. What really pisses me off is the people directly across the street from me never lose power. So we sit in the dark for an average of 4 hours or more with no a/c if it's hot and we have to unplug everything because of all of the 'warning beeping' going on with the surge protectors and cordless phones, etc. not to mention my security system which goes into 'trouble' status (battery back up) until the power comes back. I have complained (and my neighbors have also complained) to ComEd and the village I live in numerous times every summer and absolutely nothing is being done about this problem. I understand outages happen in bad weather but when the power goes out 8 times in one summer (averaging 4 hours) and the people across the street are not experiencing the same thing, wouldn't that tick you off? Does anyone have any suggestions as to who I can talk to about this situation?

Thanks!

My power would go out about once a week, a real pain in the behind.. So I figured I would fight back and bought a 10 Kilowatt generator, wire it to the house.. That was 3 years ago, the power hasn't gone out since..
If I we're you I would get a big extension cord and buy your neighbours across the street a bottle of wine.

My power company is Reliant, and they are very reliable. Although we've not had many thunder storms, the power hasn't gone out since October, and it was about twenty minutes then.

Our NFL team, the Texans, play in Reliant Stadium (I hate corporate naming rights, but that's another topic) and the lights have gone out there a couple times!

The way they suck, and I understand some of this is needed, but they have raised rates something like 31% since this time last year. I'm learning not to suffer as much with the A/C off, but as it warms and humidifies not sure how much more I can stand.

yep, sounds like pretty spotty service...

4 hours compared to two weeks with no power :green:

I live in an older neighborhood with large trees, so when storms comes thru. We get hit harder than other areas.

PSO is finally going thru during good weather and trimming agressively, before they need to.

to be fair our service has improved, going from outages lasting up to two weeks, down to 1/2 day. frequency has going down too.

that's why I'm fully equiped with a 6,500 watt Honda generator and Yamaha 1,000 watt genset.

turns out 6,500 watt eats too much gas, 1,000 watt is not big enough. so chased down a Yamah 4,500 watt.

In all the places I've lived in including growing up in hicksville, Vermont, I've never seen the power go out eight times in one summer so yeah I think you have a legitimate beef. Have you enquired/complained to the local town/city management and see if they are aware/agree there is a problem?

geepondy said:

In all the places I've lived in including growing up in hicksville, Vermont, I've never seen the power go out eight times in one summer so yeah I think you have a legitimate beef. Have you enquired/complained to the local town/city management and see if they are aware/agree there is a problem?

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I've complained so much they (the village) know me by my first name when I call there. They are aware there is a problem and still nothing is being done about it. I get the royal run-around now from the village and ComEd is a joke to talk to. I don't know what else to do.

Have you asked them what caused the power outage in each circumstance?

well, my power company is ConTeddysun :wink: and we haven't had a black or brown out in 10 years, I'm proud to report! :thumbsup:

..if your neighbor across the street is really serviced by another company/circuit then an extension cord seems to be an excellent cheap solution, if you can get them to go for it!? Only prob I see is how to get it across the street, actual sop conduit that would let cars and trucks pass over would be expensive.. is there some other way to do it? You could even install a little meter..so you know what you owe them.

Do you know why the power keeps going out?

I actually have thought about an extension cord but the neighbor I am closest to (they are like my second Mom & Dad) live 'kiddie corner' from me and too many cars would pass over it, plus it would have to be really long. I did have to use their freezer when the power was out for 23 hours.
I don't know why the power keeps going out because I get a different excuse from ComEd every time like 'well it did storm pretty bad ma'am and 9,000 other people are without power, not just you.' But the people across the street have friggin' power, WTF??? I have been told everything under the sun-it's an underground line problem, a car hit a pole 2 towns over, some trees blew onto the lines, lightening hit something somewhere-we don't know where yet but our crews are out looking for the problem, bla bla bla.
We get brown outs and flickering all the time too. ComEd told me the problem was in my house so I had a professional electrician friend of mine come over to prove ComEd wrong and guess what, my house is not the problem. I'm fed up and I just can't deal with ComEd anymore. Two summers ago I emailed my local tv station but they didn't respond.

if you don't open door to deep freeze, it's usually OK for 24 hours. but personally I'd chase down a power generator.

they are not too dificult to hookup and run. I like being self-contained for emergencies anyways...

We rarely have power outages..... of course we're facing a 73% rate increase this June!
Thanks Baltimore Gas & Electric, you suck!!!

Rolling blackouts in Dallas today. 'Seems that this is a low point before A/C season... I mean, summer and not only are peaker plants offline, but a number of their regular plants were offline for maintenance and repairs in preparation for the certainty of July and August in Dallas. Longtime residents are telling me that it feels like 1980 already (continuous months of > 100°F daytime temperatures).

It's strange seeing electric rates steadily rise here in Texas - nevermind blackouts - where there is ample generating capacity and we routinely export power to other states...

Yeah, deregulation has made everything better. I'm starting to look at the 100W solar panels at Fry's and compact wind generators again. If there's not one, there's the other in Texas - oftentimes both.

As for deep freezes - any time of year that you expect power outages, you could freeze large blocks of ice to maximize the "thermal mass" (if you will) of the contents so perishables will last longer without power. My parents were in the wake of Katrina in southeast Texas and their deep-dreeze contents lasted about 48 hours using this method (I think they found a source of additional ice before 48 hours).

Well I spoke too soon, it seems. The power company here did rolling blackouts yesterday, and might do them again today. It's hotter than usual, even for South Texas, and the P.U.C wasn't ready. Yesterday's blackouts did not affect me here, but today isn't over, though nothing yet.