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House lights flickering and salty streets — Brooklynian

House lights flickering and salty streets

pastoralia
pastoralia
edited November -1 in Park Slope
I noticed last night that our lights were flickering in every room of our apartment. We're not using any more electricity than normal. When I went to bed I had my reading light on and even that was doing some rapid fire flickers. I talked to other tenants and they said they noticed the same thing.

I called me landlord and he said the problem could be the salt on the streets interfering with the electricity coming from outside. He mentioned something about the "leg" from the street.

It seems plausible because it's never happened before and usually we don't get his with a big storm like we did.

OR

Is my landlord taking the easy way out again?

Signed,
Hoping I don't die in my sleep.

Comments

  • veets
    veets
    IMO this scenario is possible. Years ago we had a problem with "the line that came in to the house" and the first symptom was an intermittent flickering. Eventually, there was no electricity in half the house. If you are concerned about your safety or even just the honesty of the landlord then you should call Con Ed and run the story by them.
  • inigo
    inigo
    Agree that you should call ConEd. There could be exposed wires out there. A few years ago, a woman was walking her doggy and the dog got electrocuted and died this way. Lots of other people have been shocked. Worth calling to check, even if it's just for peace of mind
  • bluecat
    bluecat
    Our lights were flickering too, this happens almost every winter when DOT does a major salting. It gets into the transformers and they blow out. I saw a ConEd truck working at 6th & 6th last night. Maybe you live nearby?
  • modsquad
    modsquad
    you might want check neighboring buildings also. Con ed won't fix it unless people complain enough. It will not get better with time and will blow eventually. Using the term "leg" implies the speaker knows something about electricity. Other good terms are "shunt", "single phase", "3 phase", ( sorry no 2 phase power distribution) "load", and my favorite "flat connection", (illegal).
  • opossumqueen
    opossumqueen
    Our lights have been flickering for a few days and they have never flickered in this place that I can recall.
  • nitcomb
    nitcomb
    Yes, this happened to us around 10 years ago. Con Ed said it was the salt. Power went out in half of the house. Sadly it was the half that powered the heat!
  • rickie lee
    rickie lee
    Yup, we had flickering lights too.
  • bemis
    bemis
    Yep, definitely plausible. We saw this a couple years ago - and a couple weeks after that, something major happened in the vault, meaning no power for 2-3 days, and serious amounts of ConEd workers underneath 4th Avenue to fix it.
  • pastoralia
    pastoralia
    The day after I posted this Con Ed was out at our intersection working all day/night. Hasn't happened since.
  • carmen
    carmen
    my lights have been flickering all day. Sort of late for the salt, I guess all the rain might have had something to do with it...
  • swngnmonk
    swngnmonk
    I had this problem on and off for a couple of years, until I finally called ConEd to raise a stink about it. The long and the short of it is that yes, they fixed it (bad neutral, I believe was the explanation. not sure what it means).

    Note - this work is handled by their emergency crews, so unless someone in the house has lifesaving medical equipment hooked up to the power, you won't see anyone for a while. The other thing is that you need to know where the manhole is that accesses your lines - in my case, it was under a parked car - I had to borrow some ConEd cones & re-schedule, sticking around at home during an alternate-side parking day to cone off the manhole so they could get access.

    Good luck!
  • union street
    union street
    I wonder if this is related to the massive explosion that just happened on 5th at Carroll and President where a couple of manhole covers blew up and, it seems, some transformers or something ConEd-related are currently on fire beneath the street.
  • illig
    illig
    Flexichick wrote: Agree that you should call ConEd. There could be exposed wires out there. A few years ago, a woman was walking her doggy and the dog got electrocuted and died this way. Lots of other people have been shocked. Worth calling to check, even if it's just for peace of mind
    yep, it's not really winter in NYC until ConEd electrocutes a dog

    IIRC, their bills always say 'call us if you notice your lights flickering or dimming'... so call them.
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