This morning I had planned on meeting some classmates to take a day trip to Lake Constance. I was up before my alarm, got online to say hi to my hubby (who was fast asleep and unavailable for an online chat) and got ready. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, then WHAM! I plug in my hair blow dryer and all the lights go out. I blew a fuse. So I run down to the basement and only found switches labelled 1 through 7 and some electricity meters.
I called the executive director of our program, because I dis not know who else to call at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, or at any time! While she was juggling her two small kids, she tried to walk me through resetting a breaker. Only, the problem was all I can find was the switches for the central heating, the washing machine, etc. So I had to resort to knocking on people's doors. Third time was a charm- I woke up my upstairs neighbor after she slept for only two hours. She only spoke German and I am at a loss for some technical terms here. I told her "mein licht ist kaputt" meaning my lights are broken, and she asked me if it was just my lights, so I told her "alles". She stumbled downstairs in her PJs with some fuses, showed me how to change my fuses (I finally found the fuse box in the kitchen), but then, she could not get any of the fuses to work. She told me that the ones that were bad were hot, so I needed to go buy more fuses.
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I took the bus into town and found some fuses, bought them, came all the way back, just to discover those types of fuses were NOT the problem. I actually had replacement fuses for the fuse that was broken. You can tell that the fuse is broken because the little indicator pops out of the front of it. They are cylindrical fuses made of metal and ceramic; they look a lot like knobs. I never would have known to unscrew them and take out the core to "reset" the fuse. LOL.
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I called the executive director of our program, because I dis not know who else to call at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, or at any time! While she was juggling her two small kids, she tried to walk me through resetting a breaker. Only, the problem was all I can find was the switches for the central heating, the washing machine, etc. So I had to resort to knocking on people's doors. Third time was a charm- I woke up my upstairs neighbor after she slept for only two hours. She only spoke German and I am at a loss for some technical terms here. I told her "mein licht ist kaputt" meaning my lights are broken, and she asked me if it was just my lights, so I told her "alles". She stumbled downstairs in her PJs with some fuses, showed me how to change my fuses (I finally found the fuse box in the kitchen), but then, she could not get any of the fuses to work. She told me that the ones that were bad were hot, so I needed to go buy more fuses.
.jpg)
I took the bus into town and found some fuses, bought them, came all the way back, just to discover those types of fuses were NOT the problem. I actually had replacement fuses for the fuse that was broken. You can tell that the fuse is broken because the little indicator pops out of the front of it. They are cylindrical fuses made of metal and ceramic; they look a lot like knobs. I never would have known to unscrew them and take out the core to "reset" the fuse. LOL.
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2 Comments:
Sounds frustrating! At least you now know what to do in case it happens again. :)
- Glenna
Yes, it is GOOD I knew for the next time, because it seems, there would be and may continue to be a next time! I feel like the guy in Apollo 13 trying to keep the AMPs from going over a certain amount by changing what I can plug in. I cannot have three things on in my apartment- two lights, and the hairblow dryer (bam!) or, my computer, the refrigerator, and the space heater (bam!)... I have to unplug my fridge to use my hairblow dryer or the space heater. LOL.
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