No Power or Partial Power in Tampa Bay
A dead circuit, half the house out, a breaker that will not reset or lights that dim when the AC starts, in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and the rest of the bay. Call now.
When part of the house goes dark and the neighbors still have lights, the problem is usually on your side of the meter. Sometimes it is a breaker or a GFCI. Sometimes it is a loose connection, a failed breaker, or a lost leg of the service that leaves half the house dead and the AC unable to start.
If you smell something burning, hear buzzing at the panel, or see a warm or scorched outlet, stay away from it, turn off the main breaker if you can reach it safely, and call.
Need an electrician?Call 000-000-0000
Start with the easy checks
Look at the panel for a breaker sitting in the middle position; push it fully off, then back on. If it trips again right away, leave it off. Something on that circuit is shorted or overloaded, and resetting it over and over heats the breaker and the wire.
Dead outlets in a bathroom, garage, kitchen or outside are often downstream of one GFCI outlet somewhere else, sometimes in a different room. Press its reset button. If it will not reset, or trips as soon as something is plugged in, there is a fault on that run.
When half the house is out
A house gets two 120-volt legs from the utility. When one of them is lost, the lights on that leg go dark, the 240-volt equipment (the AC, the water heater, the dryer, the range) stops, and the rest of the house works normally. Lights that brighten and dim as big loads start point the same way, or to a loose neutral.
Part of that path belongs to the power company: the line, the drop and the meter. The rest is yours: the meter can terminals, the main breaker, the panel. Check whether neighbors have the same problem and report it to Tampa Electric or Duke Energy Florida; if the utility finds nothing on its side, the fault is in the house and an electrician traces it.
What an electrician checks
Voltage at the meter and the main, then leg by leg through the panel. Breakers that feel hot or look discolored, aluminum feeders with loose or corroded lugs, double-tapped breakers, and the connections at the outlets where a circuit stops working. After Helene and Milton, add water in the meter can or the panel, which means replacement rather than cleaning.
- A tripped or failed breaker, replaced with the panel maker's listed breaker
- A loose or burned connection at an outlet, a switch or a splice
- A lost leg or a loose neutral at the main or the meter can
- A GFCI or arc-fault breaker doing its job on a real fault
- Flood or salt damage in an outdoor panel or meter can
Storms and outages
After a storm, a house can come back on with only part of its power, or with damage that only shows when the AC starts. If the meter or the service mast was pulled off the house, the repair on your side is permitted work, and the utility reconnects after it passes inspection.
Equipment that sat in flood water does not get dried out and switched back on. Breakers, GFCIs, arc-fault devices and outlets that were under water are replaced, which is the guidance NEMA publishes for water-damaged electrical equipment.