What is the cause of our strange electricity situation?

Question

Last night the lights went off completely for two hours, then they came back but only 'half'.
They are very dim. Plus my kettle will warm water but not boil it, and the plugin heater barely does anything to heat the room up. We have no light in the bathroom.
We are in Sydney where there have been massive outages - but I have never experience anything like this before...
What should I do?

Answer 1

Brownout or a lost phase. Don't use electrical motors when this is happening (fans and the like). Keep your sensitive electronic equipment shut off.

Answer 2

I seen this in my neighborhood a few years ago. A street crew used heavy equipment on residential pavements and broke a few wires.You may have lost a Phase or a ground. Not really A DYI job call an electrician.

Answer 3

I would call your power company and have them check to make sure they have power on both line coming in. In your situation, one of the phases are out in your panel and from what you said I wouldn't think its caused from within your house, its sounds like the problem lies outside your house. If the power company comes out and says everything is ok on their end, then call a electrician, they should just need to change out the main breaker.

Answer 4

Maybe blown fuses or a short in your system. It may need to be updated in case you use alot of computers and appliances. I would get it checked very soon. My husband is a firefighter and mentions lots of fires started from faulty wiring,etc.

Answer 5

You are having what we call a brown out. Call your electric provider.

Answer 6

You need to call your power provider and have them investigate the cause.

Answer 7

get advise from the local authorise electrician. or power station personnel