The Sunday after we got home from Nebraska was busy. Patrick was definitely still feeling stressed and sore. His primary (children’s sunday school) lesson at home was a total bust and ended abruptly with him getting out of control and then him asking his teacher to end early. He was so out of sorts that Brian just kept him home from church. And most of the rest of the day was spent just kind of trying to just help keep him calm and happy.
So, when Brian was away at church meetings in the evening and Patrick got restless, we went to visit family. And when I got home and the internet was out, I decided to just let it be till the expert got home to check it out. Usually, our server just needs rebooted.
This time, however, the problem was much bigger. Brian went looking for problems when the server and modem seemed ok. He didn’t expect to discover the cable box mounted on the house to be missing.
That’s right. Missing.
While Patrick and I were gone that evening, our cable box caught fire, fell off the house, and melted on the ground. It singed our siding. It melted a sprinkler. And then it burned out. Thank goodness.
I know now what happened, but that night couldn’t imagine how a cable signal box (a.k.a. pedestal) could simply self-ignite. There were burned cables hanging. And I was freaked.
I called Comcast, but got a call center who knows where. There is apparently nothing in the customer service script about what to do in the case of fire. And with the fire out and it being 10 at night, it didn’t seem right to call 911. So I made an appointment for the next day at 1. Then, I made an appeal for someone to come earlier and that somehow made them erase the appointment. Only they didn’t say so.
So the next day, I stayed home and waited for the cable company. When they didn’t come, I started calling. I called 4 times. They had a 12 year old phone number in their records. They kept failing to remove that number from their records. They were having a supervisor call me. Or a special ticket created. Or a field research supervisor. No one called back. No one came. Lesson learned – if you have a problem with a cable box fire, report your service is out. That is the fastest and most efficient way to get help. Don’t mention the fire. They don’t have a solution available for that.
Anyway – meanwhile Brian was supposed to fly to Norway the next day for work. So here we were, trying to get ready for him to leave town. No phone (we use VoIP). No internet. No streaming video. (A problem for Patrick.) And me spending all day on the phone trying to get someone sent out.
Tuesday morning, I finally got the fire department to come and look at the damage. They explained that the fault was likely an ungrounded power meter. With our house not grounded, a surge of electricity had used the cable line as a ground.
And without any resolution, I put Brian on a plane to Europe.
That evening, I got an electrician here. He confirmed that our house had somehow lost its neutral and used the cable line as a ground, causing the box to overheat and burn. He also quoted me the cost of grounding the house. A day without power, a building permit and inspection.. and a hefty dollar price tag, too. I told him I’d get back to him when my husband landed so I could talk to him about the budget.
Wednesday, a friend who had previously worked for Comcast intervened on my behalf. I’d finally gotten a Friday appointment to come investigate the outage. My friend got someone to come out and fix the cable. He replaced the box and ran new cable from the pole, since the existing cable had been melted inside.
Thursday, I got a sprinkler guy here to replace the melted head so I could turn my sprinklers back on. With highs in the 90’s, I wasn’t keeping up with watering.
And finally yesterday, we had the electrician come to replace the meter. The work went smoothly. There was a breakdown of communication between the building inspector and the power company and it was nearly bedtime before we got power back on.
It felt like an especially big burden to take on by myself while my husband was out of town. I am so grateful for friends and family who stepped in to help out with charging, shared wifi, advice, phone calls, referrals, keeping Patrick entertained and other help. I really did feel in over my head. Especially trying to keep Patrick safely away from the downed lines and the workmen all week and juggling his needs with the time required to make phone calls and get things fixed.
Patrick is still mad at me that I haven’t washed the scorch marks off the wall yet. But there are definitely more important things, and safer things, than getting up on a ladder with him “helping” to do that job.
Meanwhile, you may have noticed that the blog was down. Sorry about that. When Comcast restored service, they reset our IP. They aren’t big fans of hosting your own websites on a home internet account. So it took getting the professional, Brian, back home to get things up and running again.
Patrick Hoopes 