Overdrawn at the Energy Bank

Well, we knew it was a possibility, and we finally managed to pop the main circuit breaker on Fernley House today. We have only 100A of service, and as the weather got warmer, the chance of pulling too much power went up. Today it happened, and indeed, there was some unwanted drama involved in that just resetting the breaker (after turning off many appliances) wasn't enough. The breaker was too warm. We had to give it time to cool down. Eventually it did reset, but we'll have to be more careful. For instance, running the clothes dryer and the air conditioner at the same time I'm using a lot of hot water and thus driving the hot water heater hard may not be allowed.

In addition, we need to track down a 125A main breaker to replace the existing 100A main breaker. According to NV Energy, the service to our house is a maximum 125A unless we spend a high four figure sum of money to have a new 200A line run to the house and the main box replaced. We'd rather not spend that money, so instead we'll have to get a Zinsco-type (the older style, not generally in stores anymore) 125A breaker, and Lisa will need to work out how to change the main breaker without being able to disconnect the utility feed. Lisa has replaced main breakers on live lines on houses on Oregon, so she is aware of the danger involved. She says she can see how to do it, but it's still something that will have to be approached quite carefully.