Fuck DTE

[SteveS]

There is a lot of hate for DTE which I understand. I will give them some credit for improving a situation in my area. I'd say from about 2018-2020 we were experiencing very frequent brief outages of just a few seconds during the spring and summer months but that's a few seconds too much. I called and called and they would send a truck out and they couldn't find anything. I was always very clear in telling them that it wasn't just us and that our neighbors experienced the outages at the same time. They said it was important to note the date and time of the issues and call right away which I did. Finally one of the techs mentioned that there was a significant tree trimming effort underway which likely would help. He was right in that a H*** amount of trimming took place over a period of time after that and I have to say that so far it has fixed the problem as there have been zero brief outages this year and I think there were none last year as well.

[radioandtventhusiast]

During our most recent extended neighborhood power outage due to a tree that fell on power lines last month during a severe storm it took about 2 and a half days to fix, my older brother and sister-in-law had to wait 4 days and they live right nearby, which meant food had to be thrown out.

Since the start of the pandemic, I've had a decent amount of few second outages, even when the weather in decent, mainly during the summer months. The only other times I've had surges were in heavy storms usually. My provider is Toledo Edison, a division of First Energy. I'm not sure if my next door neighbor has those surges at the same time as well. It seems like it's not uncommon in late morning or early afternoon, although there was one on a clear early July night at about a quarter to Eleven. There was one during the storm a few days in which in which my Bose Wave Radio was the only thing that shut off and reset itself for a few seconds.

[audiophile]

DTE does not fuse many of two-wire high-voltage runs across the road to a house transformer. So a twisted pole top bar takes out the whole community, rather than just one customer.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

Get a generator.

If I promise to keep my anal virginity, will you buy me one when I turn 39?

As to Matt, DTE moved a lot of power lines from overhead to underground, but that doesn't solve all the problems. You also have a lot of the "save the trees, fuck your powerlines" folks around there. I know because I talked to them when I worked at the three letter. It's an evil company, but less even than the Republican Party and big pharma.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

Get a generator.

If I promise to keep my anal virginity, will you buy me one when I turn 39?

Only if his wife can watch your exam at the proctologist.

Imagine being a mom and staying in the room during a gyno visit just so you can peep out her hymen. That's some fucking creepy ass shit.

DTE does suck btw. I had a problem with lights flickering only in my bathroom. I ignored it but the DTE guy came to our neighborhood and when I went out to get the mail, he asked about flickering lights. He said that our house was on two transformers or something. I don't understand how that works but it was really weird.

He meant one transformer is working and the other is not, so you have half power. Happens all the time.

There is a lot of hate for DTE which I understand. I will give them some credit for improving a situation in my area. I'd say from about 2018-2020 we were experiencing very frequent brief outages of just a few seconds during the spring and summer months but that's a few seconds too much. I called and called and they would send a truck out and they couldn't find anything. I was always very clear in telling them that it wasn't just us and that our neighbors experienced the outages at the same time. They said it was important to note the date and time of the issues and call right away which I did. Finally one of the techs mentioned that there was a significant tree trimming effort underway which likely would help. He was right in that a H*** amount of trimming took place over a period of time after that and I have to say that so far it has fixed the problem as there have been zero brief outages this year and I think there were none last year as well.

We had 6 outages a year from 2014 to 2016, all lasting around a day. They fixed a cable pole line that goes from overhead to underground, and our outages now have been momentary blips since the pandemic started.

42 hours and counting.

I lost power for 4 days in March 2017 after the windstorm knocked out 800K homes and businesses. Guarantee that was worse. My house got down to 50 degrees. Kind of a miracle my pipes didn't bust.

[km1125]

DTE does not fuse many of two-wire high-voltage runs across the road to a house transformer. So a twisted pole top bar takes out the whole community, rather than just one customer.

Fuses can be a blessing and a curse. Yes, they can isolate an individual outage, but a simple surge in the system (either caused by lightning or a larger transmission issue) can cause fuses to pop all over the place resulting in LARGE outages with MANY, MANY issues to resolve to get everyone back on.

[audiophile]

I understand that is possible there would be a higher replacement on the number of fuses, but as a upside would also protect the users more from lightning and the problem is more easily spotted and rectified, because the location of the short is clear. All those drops add up to a lot more potential problems, and it hard to isolate the original issue for the outage for everyone.

To be clear, I'm referring to high-voltage feed that goes across the road to feed one house -- it should be fused at the branch, but they could skip fuses at transformer.

DTE crewman told me it took 4 days once to get some to drive the line before they even tried to reenergize it, because they were afraid of blowing something up. There was nothing wrong with it, it came right up, so 4 days of feeding a generator for me and countless other issues for others.

.

[MWmetalhead]

I remember that March 2017 windstorm. High blue skies all day yet multiple gusts to 60+ mph throughout the day. It was a mild day, too, by mid-March standards. High temp was in the upper 50s, I believe.

I cannot recall by how much the temp dropped in the ensuing days. I do not remember any snow or ice after the cold front passed through, but I could be mistaken.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

I understand that is possible there would be a higher replacement on the number of fuses, but as a upside would also protect the users more from lightning and the problem is more easily spotted and rectified, because the location of the short is clear. All those drops add up to a lot more potential problems, and it hard to isolate the original issue for the outage for everyone.

To be clear, I'm referring to high-voltage feed that goes across the road to feed one house -- it should be fused at the branch, but they could skip fuses at transformer.

DTE crewman told me it took 4 days once to get some to drive the line before they even tried to reenergize it, because they were afraid of blowing something up. There was nothing wrong with it, it came right up, so 4 days of feeding a generator for me and countless other issues for others.

.

They do have protectors near transformers. The problem is that animals, wind, and trees dislodge them. I never forget when a squirrel got fried near a major feed line near a substation outside Fowlerville. The main transmission line failure took out 7.5K people on a Sunday.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

I remember that March 2017 windstorm. High blue skies all day yet multiple gusts to 60+ mph throughout the day. It was a mild day, too, by mid-March standards. High temp was in the upper 50s, I believe.

I cannot recall by how much the temp dropped in the ensuing days. I do not remember any snow or ice after the cold front passed through, but I could be mistaken.

It was in the 40s during the day and around 30 at night. But yes, it was around 60 ahead of the front. Not rare for March. Very rough storm on the back end because the winds kept blowing hard for 48 hours. We are underground too btw.

[Motown322]

I remember that March 2017 windstorm. High blue skies all day yet multiple gusts to 60+ mph throughout the day. It was a mild day, too, by mid-March standards. High temp was in the upper 50s, I believe.

I cannot recall by how much the temp dropped in the ensuing days. I do not remember any snow or ice after the cold front passed through, but I could be mistaken.

I was out for 5 days during that storm... lost power late that Wednesday evening and it didn't come back on until 5pm the following Monday. 4 days in a hotel with our dog and cat. It definitely got cold over that weekend (I was worried about pipes going too) and we got hammered with a bunch of snow overnight on that Sunday and into Monday afternoon.

[audiophile]

I understand that is possible there would be a higher replacement on the number of fuses, but as a upside would also protect the users more from lightning and the problem is more easily spotted and rectified, because the location of the short is clear. All those drops add up to a lot more potential problems, and it hard to isolate the original issue for the outage for everyone.

To be clear, I'm referring to high-voltage feed that goes across the road to feed one house -- it should be fused at the branch, but they could skip fuses at transformer.

DTE crewman told me it took 4 days once to get some to drive the line before they even tried to reenergize it, because they were afraid of blowing something up. There was nothing wrong with it, it came right up, so 4 days of feeding a generator for me and countless other issues for others.

.

They do have protectors near transformers. The problem is that animals, wind, and trees dislodge them. I never forget when a squirrel got fried near a major feed line near a substation outside Fowlerville. The main transmission line failure took out 7.5K people on a Sunday.

Case in point for fused branches.

[km1125]

They do have protectors near transformers. The problem is that animals, wind, and trees dislodge them. I never forget when a squirrel got fried near a major feed line near a substation outside Fowlerville. The main transmission line failure took out 7.5K people on a Sunday.

Case in point for fused branches.

Actually, it's not. If I'm understanding the situation described, the fuse was tripped and took out the entire area. Had that fuse not been there, the critter would have gotten fried quickly, there would have been a minor glitch on the transmission line (lights might have blinked) and nobody would have been out.

Critters get fried all the time on the higher-voltage lines and typically don't cause issues. The "surge" of current isn't much more than a large motor or compressor starting.

But a major fuse going off and being restored has the potential of creating surges all along the line. Those surges can take out fuses or other components many miles away. You're probably familiar with stories where some people don't lost power in the initial storm, but lose power during some of the restoration, which is typical of those surge-induced breaker or fuse trips.

[audiophile]

That's not what I mean. Any arc will trip the power, and DTE seems to not even re-try the circuit anymore. I have seen a broken limb lay across the power line and take it out. If this happens on a feeder that crosses the road and feeds one home it will take out a thousand homes.

[Ben Zonia]

Underground power lines have a useful life of about 30 years. After that, DTE, and probably many other power companies, go through several prolonged power failures in an area before they get authorization, planning, and money to fix it.

Actually, cable companies act even worse, since they are less essential. I told Comcast for years that they had a break in the center conductor of the underground cable before the drop line, which acts like a capacitor, and passed VHF High and UHF band, and blocked the 54-88 VHF Low Band. They tried to avoid fixing it with more amplification, but Channels 2-6 were still abysmal. After several years, they finally dug it up on both ends and snaked a new cable through.

Even worse is when the power companies leave an open hole and a big rainstorm comes up and floods the hole. That often results in another failure.