In many homes in Bloomingdale that still have
their original electric meters and wiring (including mine), residents may
experience what I term a ``brown out.``
A brown out is when a home loses only part of its power in contrast to a
black out where the home loses all power.
Brown outs can occur with the older equipment because the original power
feed came to our homes through two lines extending from the Pepco main feeder
cable in the street or alley to the home`s electric meter and then to the
circuit breaker box.
During times when the drain on the power grid
is pushing the system to or past its limits, Pepco can reduce that stress by
cutting power to one of the two lines or sometimes a transformer serving one of
the lines breaks down. The result will
be that half of a house will have power and half won`t. This is an example of the proverbial
half-a-loaf or a brown out. In homes
that have upgraded their electrical systems and thus have only one big line
going to the meter and circuit breaker, when Pepco reduces current flowing
through the system, these homes are likely to lose all power and have a black
out.
If some residents have experienced brown outs
this past week, that may have been because Pepco was trying to reduce stress on
the system while it was trying to fix all the problems. But the chances are good that certain
transformers were not supplying power to both lines leaving some homes with
partial power. I just hope that anyone
who experienced a brown out was lucky enough to have the refrigerator and some
AC on the line that worked.
John T. Salatti
Vice
President, Bloomingdale Civic Association(202) 986 - 2592
``Together, Building a Better Bloomingdale``
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