I'm waiting for the power to possibly go down for a little while. According to my (good) neighbor, the power company is coming to replace the old transformer with a new one. To be honest, I'm dumb enough about it, that I don't really know if it will affect us, but suspect it will. I know that if the transformer by their house goes out, it doesn't impact us in any way. I'm not sure about the one out on the main road.
Usually, it doesn't take them long to change out a transformer at all, once they arrive with it, and get started. Dh, asked me how I could possibly know that. I've had 2 experiences with transformers blowing out.
One was at my parent's lake property. There was this curious raccoon. The resulting explosion was heard all around the lake. Once they got out there, I was surprised how quickly they changed it out, and got us up, and running again.
Two was at my Ex's house, in a small subdivision. Normally, when a squirrel got to messing around the transformer, it would get zapped, and fall down dead on the ground. BUT there was this one squirrel.... It got up there, and BOOM. The transformer exploded. Not only that, but the heat was so intense, it melted the wires. Everyone before that transformer still had power, but everyone past that transformer was without power, but my house was the last one before that transformer, so that line had power. I could hear it snaking around on my roof, hitting the ground, then bouncing back up to the roof. My neighbors saw what was going on, and called me. Yes, I was aware, but needed to get me, and the girls out of the house SAFELY, before it caught my roof on fire.
The line came off the pole at the front of the house. I had a neighbor on the cell phone, keeping watch, and telling me when it doubled back, and snaked towards the front, while me and the girls ran out the back. The line didn't reach to where we were, but with the yard being so small, we still weren't safe, if the house caught fire. We were trapped by the chain link fence. We didn't dare climb it, or we could get zapped it that line hit it. Fortunately, by then all my neighbors had gathered round, and 2 of the men got their power tools. The one keeping lookout, coordinated so they could take the bolts off the far back corner, where the fence connected in. When the live end would go on the roof, they unscrewed bolts. When the line would hit the ground, they'd stop. Shortly, they had the bolts free, the fence pushed back, so there was a big enough opening, and when it was safe, we escaped.
It took the power company over 40 minutes to show up, and cut the power to that line, knowing there was a woman, and 3 kids trapped in the house. When the neighbor called to report what was going on, they asked her address. When they asked where the downed line was, the operator put in the neighbor's address, instead of mine. Since the neighbor's address was out of power, they didn't take the report of a downed live wire as seriously. No power, no live wire, no threat, right?
When they finally did show up, the linemen freaked out. They got the power cut immediately. By then, my entire roof was covered in streaks of scorch marks where the live line had snaked across it.
It took longer for them to get there, than it took for them to replace the transformer, and restore power. Yeah, I do know a little about how long it takes for them to change the transformer.
