Thankful For A Near Miss
Happy belated thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends. And, happy early thanksgiving to all my American friends.
My apologies for vanishing for the last few days, I’ve been slightly preoccupied with the state of our house.
You see, we’ve been having electrical problems in our house for the last few months. But, in the last couple weeks things took a drastic and concerning turn. Our lights were flickering frequently. If we turned on any kitchen appliances they whole house dimmed. Eventually some appliances started randomly turning off, but never actually flipping a breaker. Needless to say, we knew something was pretty wrong and we knew it was beyond our skillset.
So, we started searching for an electrician who could get to our house, urgently. We found someone, but they couldn’t come another week. So, we just stopped cooking at home (which meant after a full month of cooking every meal at home we had to eat out again). I even stopped blow drying my hair! Basically, we made a point to stop using anything that drew a lot of electricity.
After talking to a few different companies, we decided we needed to replace our old electrical panel and to do some investigation in our kitchen. So, the company we hired got to work. We were supposed to have power back in half a day. But, of course, it didn’t work out that way. We ended up having our panel replaced and the problems persisted. The city power company had to come out to investigate the city’s electrical connections to our house. The decided to replace everything from the main city line to our house. The problems persisted. Eventually the electricians and the city figured it out and our lights and appliances returned to normal. In fact, the city inspectors came the next morning and passed the inspection to confirm the work was done correctly.
Mr. MPB and I just assumed everything was back to being safe.
Well, we were wrong.
Yesterday while doing some cleaning in the basement Mr. MPB noticed a piece of wood just a few feet from our brand new electrical box that was slightly burnt! Evidently the electricians, the city’s power company and the city inspectors missed it. Evidently, at some point before the panel was replaced the wire casing was stripped and had been sparking enough to slightly burn the wood (sorry if I’m using the terminology incorrectly, my knowledge of electrical wiring is basically non-existent).
Seriously, our house could have burned down!! The thought of this terrifies me. Not the thought of loosing all our stuff – I’m a firm believer that stuff is just stuff. But the thought of loosing Little MPB. Gosh, even just typing that brings tears to my eyes. I just cannot even contemplate that.
So, anyways, now thanks to Mr. MPB, we are actually confident that our house is safe once again. And, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to use my computer, cook at home, and even do my hair again!
And so this thanksgiving, I am thankful that Mr. MPB found this before our house burned down.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow.
My Perfect Breakdown 
This is so terrifying… I sometimes find myself having thoughts of our house being on fire and I panic and cry all over a passing thought. It is my worst nightmare. Not because of the stuff, like you said, but because there are 5 lives in this house (including the cats) and I can’t let myself think about losing any of them. Nope, can’t let those thoughts in or I’ll be a mess for the rest of the day. We actually have a collapsible fire escape ladder stored in an accessible place upstairs to help us escape out of our second story window. Our electricity flickers a lot, too, and we’ve had a small fire at an outlet in our sunroom. We’ve had multiple electricians do inspections, and we have a brand new panel. Our electrician says the flickering is due to the old grid in our part of the city. I still worry. So happy for you that you’ve finally gotten to the root of the problem and can rest easy!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m the same way, just don’t let the thoughts in because I will be consumed with the fear.
Can the city come in and check your connections from the city’s system? All of those connections to our house have now been updated so even though they weren’t the source of our problems, it’s nice knowing they are new connections.
LikeLike
That is terrifying! My mind would have been filled with all the “what ifs”!!! I’m so glad you are all safe. Happy Thanksgiving!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The “what ifs” are the worst part of the situation. It was definitely too close of a call, that’s for sure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
House fires are a serious thing in our family. My mom, when she was in college, was living at home. One Sunday afternoon, a fire broke out. It was something electrical. My aunt and their dog died in that fire. That stuff is no joke. My mom has scars to this day on her arms and legs. Your husband is a hero, for sure.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh gosh Katy, I am so sorry to hear about your families experience with a house fire, and the fact that your aunt and dog died. I am just so sorry. And so thankful that Mr. MPB found our electrical problem before something similar happened in our home.
LikeLike
Yikes….fire is one of my worst fears! So glad you guys got the problem all fixed finally before anything tragic could happen. Love to you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I too am so glad that the problem is resolved before a real fire happened!! This is the type of thing that is just too close for comfort.
LikeLiked by 1 person
For sure!
LikeLiked by 1 person
So scary! I’m glad you got it before something horrific happened. I have chills just thinking about what could have been. I’m glad the electrical problems are fixed and you can rest easy. And Happy Thanksgiving!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Electricity is totally the only home repair thing that terrifies me. I’m so glad Mr. MPB saw that!! Enough with all the fires 😦
LikeLike
OMG!!! That’s so scary!! Did he contact the electrician that had done the work to let them know?? I’m glad that the problem was found (or problems, I guess!) and everything is safe now. Electricity is nothing to mess around with, it’s scary!! I remember when I was little I was always afraid of a fire, and I would go and check the stove every single night before I went to bed lol. Have fun cooking and doing your hair again!
LikeLike
I have always checked the stove at night!! I also check the doors to make sure they are locked right before I go to bed. I suspect I’ll always do both of these things. 🙂
As for telling the electrician, this was one of the lines he was supposed to re-check and investigate, but ran out of time because of all the other problems. So we are brining them back in a few weeks to go through the whole kitchen and run new electrical lines to everything. So, no, we haven’t told him yet, but we definitely will! And then once they come back and re-do all our kitchen electrical then we’ll really be safe! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha! I don’t still check it, I don’t know how old I was when I stopped, I just remember doing it when I was maybe 8 or so. (Plus my mom reminds me of it lol!) I’m glad they’re coming back to update more wiring. Seriously you just can’t be too careful with that stuff!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I never checked as a kid, but now that I am an adult I always check. And now I also NEVER burn candles – I used to love burning candles as a teenager. I don’t know, it’s like something flipped in my brain and at some point I decided I probably should try not to burn my house down. haha!
LikeLiked by 1 person
So scary!!! Thank goodness he found it … or your Thanksgiving could have been very different! This is exactly how house fires happen more often than not (something electrical malfunctioning and sparking until it eventually causes a fire) – rarely are they caused by unattended candles like our parents had us believe when were candle-addicted teenagers (I know, I’m married to a firefighter who talks about this kind of stuff ALL THE TIME (even long after I’ve glazed over/fallen asleep/died a little inside)).
I’m so glad he caught it, and that it’s just a “holy shit!” story you can share with us. Definitely something to be thankful for! Happy Thanksgiving!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s so scary. We’re doing the wiring upstairs by ourselves and I worry about this constantly but N does it for a living so he’s pretty confident we’ll be okay. I’m glad it’s all resolved.
LikeLike
Wow I’m so thankful for that near miss too. Glad everything is ok!
LikeLike
Eeeek, that’s terrifying! So glad to hear all of you are safe!
LikeLike