03/28/2021
Okay, this was the site of the biggest stress test of my entire life. We were installing multiple catch basins around this porch when Craig was digging just past it, right in line with the power meter, and he hooks a rock with one of the backhoes teeth - nothing at all unusual for this location. It appeared to be a small rock - it wasn’t. The darn thing broke free and pulled the power service line (that had been run on top of the rock) out of the meter. Massive arch. The power supply was arching to the meter lugs and could have burned the house to the ground!
The meter was toast. Power off to the house and most of the subdivision. Family trying to leave the next morning on a trip - oh and by the way they had stretched their budget to the max to have the system installed so telling them to “call an electrician and let us know when he is done” wasn’t a remote option - not that that is our style anyway. Sometimes the problem with knowing how to fix so much is you then feel honor bound to do it. No pressure there!
Duke Power comes out, determines it isn’t our fault (thank God, but being right doesn’t always mean powers that be will call it that way). It’s almost 5:00 and supply house is about to close. This was an old meter and Home Depot wasn’t going to have an old style meter, and a new meter was going to cause the necessity of customizing the siding to the new style meter box. Anyway....we got lucky and made it there before they closed and they had an old style one in the back. Had to blow the dust off the box to see the item number - but hey blow away - whatever it takes to get the darn thing.
Duke couldn’t exactly figure out which leg shut off the power to that set of houses - actually about half the subdivision and one woman is on oxygen. Have I mentioned how there is no pressure here - if not let me mention how totally laid back we were all feeling right about then!
The new female employee thought she had it, but didn’t tell us it was a guess! The Duke guy decided to give Craig a hand instead of just standing there while he changed the meter out. They are exchanging Army stories (he was 13 Fox and Craig was 11 Bravo) when the Duke guy’s shirt brushes against one of the wires Craig is pushing up into one of the lugs and it arches and burns a hole in his shirt. 240 volts. Right before that they had both decided working with the thick rubber gloves was a non-starter and ditched them. It’s a wonder both of them weren’t killed. That was my second heart attack of the day.
We had skipped lunch that day and stayed until 7:30 pm getting the customer hooked back up. An electrician would have charged him about 2 grand to fix that and it would have been worth every cent. Frankly because we had doubled the size of our 100 year-old house and done the majority of the work ourselves we knew what to do. No hotel, no electrician.
As a bonus Craig and I got a free stress test that day.
