Here is the remainder of the story.
Well, this introduces a problem. Out of all the circuit breakers on the panel, none was marked “Main”. That means the main breaker was somewhere else in the house.
I call my good friend Eddie, he’s very handy, and hoped for some advice. It turned out he was still at work, but his wife, Alice, was able to give me the contact information of the electrician they use. Alice also told me to call Eddie’s cellphone. I called him right away, it was just my luck he was on his way home and just passing the exit where I live. Being a good friend, he immediately diverted course, and came to my place directly.
The first we needed to do was to figure out where the main breaker was. Eddie had a slightly older house, and he told me in addition to a switch panel, he also had fuse box. So we spent the next hour and half looking for a fuse box inside the house. I also vaguely remember seeing a fuse box somewhere, it turned out later to be the result of false memory, but I didn’t know at that time.
We couldn’t find any fuse box. We then went to two of our neighbors’ houses to see if they know where their fuse boxes were. It turned out though, they never had the same problem with their circuit, and never had the chance to use anything other than the circuit breakers.
We were baffled, and a little bit demoralized. As luck would have it though, Eddie and I went back to the electrical meter, and plied open the box next to it, we thought it was locked, but it really just latched in. Anyway, there it was, the main circuit breaker, and it was tripped. After we turned on the main breaker and all the subsequent breakers on the panel inside my house, electricity was restored. However, the circuit breaker that was controlling the rooms affected still tripped when we try to flip it on. Eddie told me it could be that the breaker was shorted as well.
So the next decision is whether to have the broken circuit breaker replaced professionally or by myself. I’m not that handy around the house, haven’t had the chance to poke around much. Eddie however, has done this numerous times, and he assured me that I can do it, then showed me in detail how to replace the circuit breaker myself. I practiced couple of times under his watchful eyes, and was told I got it.
There was yet another decision to be made. I was thinking of turning off the power to the whole house again, take out the broken circuit breaker and bring it to a store so I can get the exact replacement, making sure I don’t make the same mistake as I did with the receptacle. However, this means the whole house will be without electricity for at least couple of hours, and that will be quite inconvenient for everybody.
I decided I’d actually write down the information on the circuit breaker and call OSH to see if they carry the model. I did just that, however, the gentleman on duty at the time of my call was filling in for someone, and he wasn’t very knowledgeable in circuit breakers. I was told to call back the next day when they have the regular lady (the one who sold me the wrong receptacle) available. I decided to try my luck with Home Depot, and drove there directly.
I couldn’t find circuit breaker on display that matches the model number on my broken one. I again looked for help, and again a lady came to my rescue. She found the breaker easily, telling me I didn’t really need the same model number as long as they were from the same manufacture and had the same rating (Amps). She even showed me the proper way to install a breaker with a dummy panel, which was exactly how Eddie described it.
I went home, turned off the main breaker, took out the broken breaker, installed it and screwed in the wire. It took all of 10 minutes.
However, this is one more thing to do before I turn on the breaker. You see, one should never solve a problem without figuring out why the problem happened in the first place. So I unplugged all the appliances from the wall outlets of the rooms affected. I then only turned on the formally broken circuit breaker. Then I plugged in the appliances one at the time to make sure it didn’t trip the breaker. I was proceeding happily along until I tried to plug in the power cord of the new Dell Inspiron’s power supply. I saw an arc, and the breaker tripped again. So that’s what was causing the problem.
I used a meter to figure out that the Dell power plug was actually shorted out. I then called Dell immediately, they promised to send me a replacement part. However, when I got the replacement parts three days later, I found that Dell sent me the wrong parts! Instead of a power cord and an AC/DC converter, they sent me a heat-sink and a fan for a desktop. I had to call Dell again to straighten that out. But I digress.
At this moment, we have electricity and we couldn’t be happier. I’m sure my yet-to-be-born baby would also be proud of his dad 🙂
So what have I learned:
- It’s pays to have friends who you can count on
- It’s pays to know a bit more about electricity and how electrical systems/components work
- You needs to stay calm during any crisis so people around you don’t panic
- Never give up until you find the solution
Anyway, life’s full of challenges, and that’s what makes it so interesting.