My wife had noticed that the kitchen light seemed a little dimmer than normal. I will cut to the chase and tell you that yesterday, in the torrential rains, the lights, from the kitchen to the back bathroom, were not working well. One example was when you turned the switch on in the front bathroom, one bulb came on very dimly, while the other two bulbs did not come on at all. I called an electrician and he believed that the problem was on the outside of our house. I contacted Dominion, and they sent a technician to check the power coming in. You probably do not remember, but a few years back we lost a leg coming into our home, which was a Dominion issue. Yesterday was a different story, in other words, the power coming in and on the outlet side of our meter was normal, so the problem was mine. I called the electrician back, and he made arrangements to come to my house this morning. At that point, we believed that we would be getting a new panel box, a rather expensive fix. A little later in the evening, my wife was in the back bathroom, and I was in the kitchen. I heard a buzzing sound, and then the lights went out, from the kitchen to the back bathroom. I went to the breaker box and found the breaker for that line tripped. I reset the breaker and turned the switch on to the kitchen light, at which time it blew sparks out of the top and tripped the breaker again. With the switch off, I checked the fan in the area that the sparks flew, and it was hot, but not hot enough to indicate a fire. I then went to the attic to make sure that I did not have an issue. It was at this point that I felt pretty certain that the problem was tied to that circuit.
Fast forward to today: The electrician came to our house. I told him what had happened last night, and they immediately started at the ceiling fan/light in the kitchen. Sure enough, a wire had come loose, causing things to burn and arc. The issue down the line was all caused by the problem in the kitchen. Once the damaged portion of wire was removed, the power was restored. We then went to the other lights that had not worked properly yesterday, and they all worked properly. The electrician then reinstalled the ceiling fan/light, which fortunately was not damaged when the wiring shorted out. After everything was put back together, the lights, microwave and even Alexa went back to working the way that they were meant to work.
For most of you, you might have felt the need to call 9-1-1 or have an electrician come last night, which would all be appropriate. I felt certain that there was no fire in the attic, so we did not make the call. We also chose not to use the lights that were affected until the electrician came today. Ceiling fans and bathroom exhaust fans do account for residential fires annually. It is important that you troubleshoot or you have an electrician come and troubleshoot your electrical issues. Thankfully, the repair was relatively minor and inexpensive, compared to what it could have been. Be extremely careful when working with electricity, being sure to cut off the power to anything that you are working on. If you have no clue what you are doing, leave it alone and leave it for the certified electricians. It is my hope that even my own issues with an aging home will help you in some way.
