Losing a leg? What to replace in the house to justify to the landlord....

[RogerWilco]

Hey there, not totally new to electrical stuff but always stayed away from anything of a higher shock rating!

So in a nutshell, a mid 90's mobile home, interior copper wiring, hooked via aluminum underground cables to a 1970's pedestal, aluminum wire again to the poco transformer.
Over the last week we've experienced dimming/flashing of interior lights in multiple rooms. Finally a few nights ago power dropped to half the house, different circuits. Had an electrician out, he figures it's a leg dropping and indeed it was from what I can tell, every other circuit.
He tested, checked screws, and said we'll basically have to wait for things to fail since we can't trace it. :|

I'm mainly wondering, what can be replaced in the house so we can rule that out? I'm guessing panels don't usually go bad, but other than that, it would be the main breaker in the house, then anything else is going to be upstream?

Any help would be appreciated, getting things done in the park is like pulling teeth. Also anything I might be able to do to test/pinpoint things would be great.
I've had to move all my computer equipment into the one room we have steady power on since the other circuits on this leg are half of the water heater, the furnace, and a bathroom. The leg that goes down is a bathroom, bedroom, living room and kitchen.

Thanks very much!

 

[brianmoooore]

You'd be more likely to get a useful answer if you hadn't named your location in your profile as 'earth'. Different countries have different electrical systems and regulations.

 

[RogerWilco]

You'd be more likely to get a useful answer if you hadn't named your location in your profile as 'earth'. Different countries have different electrical systems and regulations.

Apologies, Iowa

 

[brianmoooore]

That will be USA, then. This is predominantly a UK site, but we do have a few US members who might be able to help.

 

[James]

One for @Megawatt i think.
but the generic advice in this case is to get someone qualified in to have a look at it.
remote guess work for a fault that severe could go Badly

 

[Megawatt]

One for @Megawatt i think.
but the generic advice in this case is to get someone qualified in to have a look at it.
remote guess work for a fault that severe could go Badly

My friend if just every other breaker is reading 120vac and the other breakers are not then you have lost a phase. What you need to do is just look in your panel and look ( don’t touch) at the aluminum service feeding your panel from the power company, you probably have a loose connection on one phase, corrosion where the wire terminates to the main lug, or the power company has a bad connection in one of their crimp lugs. It happens a lot and I can’t believe that your electrician told you what he did, if he was an electrician that would be a simple fix. Call the power company first.

 

[Megawatt]

My friend if just every other breaker is reading 120vac and the other breakers are not then you have lost a phase. What you need to do is just look in your panel and look ( don’t touch) at the aluminum service feeding your panel from the power company, you probably have a loose connection on one phase, corrosion where the wire terminates to the main lug, or the power company has a bad connection in one of their crimp lugs. It happens a lot and I can’t believe that your electrician told you what he did, if he was an electrician that would be a simple fix. Call the power company first.

If you could a picture of the panel would be helpful

 

[telectrix]

If you could a picture of the panel would be helpful

if he's lost a leg, contact Rolf. he has a spare.

dunno where trhe sound has gone.

 

[RogerWilco]

My friend if just every other breaker is reading 120vac and the other breakers are not then you have lost a phase. What you need to do is just look in your panel and look ( don’t touch) at the aluminum service feeding your panel from the power company, you probably have a loose connection on one phase, corrosion where the wire terminates to the main lug, or the power company has a bad connection in one of their crimp lugs. It happens a lot and I can’t believe that your electrician told you what he did, if he was an electrician that would be a simple fix. Call the power company first.

Well, hopefully it's over. After annoying the electrician and landlord enough last week and several other power outages I told em I wanna replace the breaker inside and the power company engineer said start with the breaker replacement outside.
They were just out and the mains connectors were lose in the panel(from the 1970's) and the previous bolts through em were loose.
Of course they just tapped the connectors and put a small bolt through each again..

Hoping it holds up. Thanks all for the thoughts!

**EDIT
Still getting dimming of the lights...
Told the maintenance guy the power company guy said to replace the breaker in the pedestal so I guess we'll find out more later.

 

[Megawatt]

Well, hopefully it's over. After annoying the electrician and landlord enough last week and several other power outages I told em I wanna replace the breaker inside and the power company engineer said start with the breaker replacement outside.
They were just out and the mains connectors were lose in the panel(from the 1970's) and the previous bolts through em were loose.
Of course they just tapped the connectors and put a small bolt through each again..

Hoping it holds up. Thanks all for the thoughts!

**EDIT
Still getting dimming of the lights...
Told the maintenance guy the power company guy said to replace the breaker in the pedestal so I guess we'll find out more later.

Good luck my friend and I told you what was wrong but I have my doubts about your electrician.