The first useful diagnostic in any outage costs nothing: look out the window. If the street is dark, it is the utility's problem and no electrician can help you. If you are the only dark house on the block, the fault is on your side of the meter, and that changes everything about what you should do next.
Partial power is the important pattern
Losing half the house while the other half works is not a smaller version of losing everything. It usually means one of the two legs feeding your panel has been lost — at the utility drop, the meter, the main breaker, or a main lug connection. Because of how a 240V split-phase supply works, that can leave some circuits live, some dead, and some receiving abnormal voltage.
That last part is why it matters. If you have partial power and the working lights are unusually bright or dim, or brighten and dim together as appliances cycle, switch off large appliances and call an electrician now. Abnormal voltage will quietly destroy electronics and motors while you wait.
Run through this before you call
- Check whether neighbours have power. Street-wide means utility — report it and wait.
- Look at the panel for a tripped breaker. Firmly off, then fully on, once. If it will not reset, stop.
- Check whether the main breaker itself has tripped.
- Check GFCI outlets in kitchens, baths, garages, basements and outdoors — a tripped GFCI can kill a surprising chain of downstream receptacles. Press reset.
- If your home has a fuse box rather than breakers, check for a blown fuse — but do not replace with a higher rating.
- Look at the meter and service entrance from outside, from a safe distance. Anything hanging, pulled loose or scorched is an emergency and a hazard.
Do not open the panel cover. The busbars and main lugs inside remain live even when every breaker is off, including the main. This is the single most common way homeowners get seriously hurt. If the fault is not resolved by a breaker or a GFCI reset, it is ours to look at — see our emergency electrician service.
What we look at when we arrive
Voltage at the service entrance to establish whether both legs are present. Voltage and load readings at the main to identify a failed breaker or a loose lug. A thermal scan of the panel, because a bad connection makes heat before it makes a failure and heat is visible. Then the branch circuits if the problem is downstream. Corroded main lugs, failed main breakers and loose neutrals account for the large majority of whole-house and half-house losses we see in Connecticut.
Storm damage specifics
After a Connecticut storm the common calls are a service mast pulled loose by a branch, a meter base torn from the wall, and water in the panel. The order of operations is: stay well clear of anything hanging, call the utility to report the service damage, and call an electrician to make safe and repair the service entrance. Both need to happen, and the utility will generally not reconnect until the customer-side equipment has been repaired and inspected. We coordinate that sequence so you are not the go-between.
What to protect while you wait
If you have partial power and any suspicion of an abnormal voltage condition, switch off large appliances and unplug sensitive electronics. A failed neutral can push well above normal voltage onto some circuits, and the damage it does to motors, control boards and power supplies happens over minutes rather than instantly. Turning things off is free and it is the highest-value thing you can do before help arrives.
Refrigerators and freezers are the other clock. A full freezer holds safely for around 48 hours unopened, a half-full one for around 24. A refrigerator is roughly four hours. Keep the doors shut rather than checking, and if the outage looks like it will run long, moving perishables to a neighbour's working freezer is better than any amount of hoping.
Medical equipment and well pumps
If anyone in the house depends on powered medical equipment, say that when you call — it changes the dispatch priority. It is also worth registering with your utility in advance as a medical-needs customer, which affects restoration priority during a wide-area outage, and worth having a plan for where to go if an outage runs beyond your battery backup.
Properties on well water lose water supply the moment they lose power, which is why a well pump is near the top of every essential-circuits generator list in rural Connecticut. If you are without power for more than a few hours and you are on a well, the water in the pressure tank is all you have. Filling containers early in an outage is a habit worth having.
After the power comes back
- Restore large loads gradually rather than all at once
- Check that GFCI and AFCI devices have reset and are functioning
- Look for anything that ran hot during the event — warm plates, discoloured devices
- Check the freezer contents rather than assuming
- If you suspect a surge occurred, have the panel and affected circuits checked, and consider a whole-house surge protective device