Colonial Beach has experienced some brownouts and even some isolated power outages yesterday and this morning. It’s important to understand what a brownout is, what causes one and how to be best prepared for when they do.
What Is A Brownout?
A brownout is a drop in voltage in your home. It’s different than a blackout in that you still have some of your power. Unfortunately even though you still have power, this can cause damage to electronics and wiring.
Brownouts are sometimes called a voltage slump, which describes the decreased energy flowing into your home. Often brownouts are experienced when the drain on electricity is too much for the power grid.
Causes For Brownouts
Brownouts can last from a few minutes to a few hours. They can be internal to your home or external, meaning your home is not the only one affected. One way to determine if the problem is only in your home is to find out if neighbors are also experiencing brown outs. At night a good indicator of external brownouts is the streetlight will go out and take a few moments to come back on. Or if you’re close, you could just give your neighbor a call or visit.
Three main reasons external brownouts occur are
- The Power Grid is having problems and there is too much demand for electricity.
- The power plant is having a failure.
- In some cases the power company will intentionally reduced the voltage during peak electric periods.
Internal causes include having too many electrical appliances on a single circuit, wiring that is not equipped to handle the load for large appliances such as freezers, refrigerators or air conditioners and lastly, bad wiring in your home. For internal brownouts, it’s best to call an electrician.
Brownouts shouldn’t be taken lightly as they can damage electronics, appliances and wiring.
What You Can Do.
To protect yourself, make sure your home’s wiring is up to code and in good shape. If you are not sure then call a professional to check out your home’s wiring.
For appliances, unplug small appliances that don’t need to be plugged in during times of high energy usage, such as during a very cold spell or during a heat wave. These are the times when most appliances are being overworked.
Although not all electronics will suffer damage from the actual brownout, but when power levels are restored there could be surges that damage computers, printers and other delicate appliances.
Freezers that are actively running fans may produce noise as the engine is straining to move the fan belt with the decrease in power.
Power strips or a whole home surge protector will not save your appliance damage from reduced voltage but can protect them from surges when full power is restored.
Turning off and even unplugging unused appliances is always a good thing for your electric bill, the overall load being pulled on your homes wiring and for the locality as a whole. If everyone pitches in to eliminate unneeded power usage, especially during peak hours, then brownouts can possibly be avoided.
Colonial Beach News 