Emergency Electrician in Wells, Maine

When a storm tide or a falling tree damages the power to your house, the first call depends on what you see. For a wire on the ground, keep away from it and call 911 and your utility. For flooding that reaches a panel, meter or outlets, leave the power off and stay out of the water. Near the beaches and the Webhannet marsh, where the January 2024 storms pushed water and sand over roads and into homes, submerged breakers and panels usually need replacing rather than drying out, because salt and silt get inside the mechanisms and cause trouble long after the water is gone. A qualified inspection comes before any attempt to turn the power back on. Salt air also corrodes meter sockets and outdoor boxes on cottages near the water faster than on inland homes.

Inland, ice and wind are the usual culprits. A limb coming down on the service drop can tear it loose and bend the mast, and on a mobile home it can knock over or damage the pedestal or pole that carries the meter and main disconnect. Restoring the line and the meter is the utility's job. Whatever sits on the owner's side, meaning the mast, the meter socket, the pedestal and the wiring past them, a licensed electrician must fix before the power comes back.

At any hour, Goodnow Electric answers calls about hot or sparking outlets, a smell of burning, a panel gone dead, a stubborn main breaker or a storm-bent mast. Safety comes first, then the repair, then arranging the reconnect. An owner who is out of state when bad weather arrives should have someone local check the house, since a tripped main or a flooded basement can go unnoticed for weeks. A portable generator should only feed the house through a transfer switch or interlock, never through a cord plugged into an outlet, because back-fed power can reach the lines crews are repairing.