In spring, Seattle oscillates between choruses of birds in blossom-adorned trees, and the gray Upside Down that marks it most of the year. It was a long winter, according to my electric bills. Those who know me know that in the winter, I love to ski, decorate, and snuggle up next to a space heater on full blast. This season, I attempted to answer the question, what’s better than warming oneself in front of a space heater? The answer, of course, is two space heaters.
Their collective whirl was mesmerizing and caused the lights to dim. It was glorious. Then it was dark. I grabbed my flashlight and located the breaker box. The switches were labeled with ancient runes, likely characters from a language commonly used when this four-unit apartment was built. That was the era of single-pane windows, single outlets in the kitchen, and the ability to hear your upstairs neighbors turn on a light switch. All the breakers were switched on.
There is a locked closet off of my living room. I assumed there must be other breakers in there or upstairs in the neighbor’s apartment.
The next day, the landlord sent out a maintenance man. He was younger than me but just as perplexed by the breaker box. He opened the locked closet. Inside, there were hot water tanks for all the units and a lot of usable storage space, including shelves where I could put tools, car parts, or five-gallon buckets of food to survive when I inevitably refused to pay for my groceries with a microchip. I made a note to myself to learn how to pick a lock.
The one thing the storage closet did not have was a breaker box. We checked the common space where the washer and dryer are kept. (Don’t worry friends, I checked there too, so Amanze did not find anything). He then mused that it might be in one of the other apartments; these old units were so weird, after all. I texted my upstairs neighbors and got no response.
Hide your cats, Micah! I texted my next-door neighbor. He has two cats that he hasn’t told the landlord about. He answered the door when Amanze knocked. Micah’s unit did not hold the breaker, or any trace of kitties.
Amanze talked to his manager and called in the big guns, a certified electrician. First, we showed him the closet and said, no breaker box. Then we showed him the common space and said, no breaker box.
He scratched his head and said, “So you don’t have a breaker box in your apartment?”
“Oh no, I do, but they are all flipped on and none of them are labeled as bedroom.”
“Show me.”
He opened the panel and ran his finger over the switches. Next, he wiggled each one. He found one with a bit of play, flipped it all the way off, and then back on. The lights in my bedroom flickered on.
“Anything else I can help you with?”
“No, I just needed a big, strong man to flip the breaker on.”
Fast-forward to the dead of winter. It was cold, not just in Seattle but across the state and the country. As if to remind us that cold, not heat, claims more lives each year, winter consumed the living at a startling pace.
At work, things began to fail. A crew crossing the Gulf of Alaska reported that their tow winch brake was frozen in place. Two PVC pipes burst in the shipyard despite a trickle of water being left on. Then, the ladies in the main office called me. Their power was out.
First, I checked the outlets to see if there were any reset buttons. There were not, but there were about six space heaters plugged in. I went back downstairs.
No one was around. Half the crew was sick. The other half was downtown because when the locks are closed, the tugs cannot make it up the ship canal to our yard. The final half was chipping ice off of hoses or pounding steel. Apropos of nothing, seven out of five people struggle with fractions.
There was no way I was going to pull a guy away from his work for this.
Someone had hidden the breaker box behind a shelf with tools, so it took me a while to find it.
It was also labeled with the same sort of ancient runes that I could not previously decipher. All the breakers were flipped on. I remembered my hard-learned knowledge and ran my finger down the row. One of them had a bit of give. This will either fix the problem or make it worse, I thought. I flipped it all the way off then back on.
It worked! One of the office ladies texted me.
My next mission was to find the women of the office surge protectors, which I also succeeded in.
“Hail hero, well met!” They shouted in unison when I went back into the office or the female equivalent of that.
I thought back to how embarrassed I had been when an electrician had had to show me this simple trick, but now I was glad for the knowledge. And so it goes. You must be a fool before you can be a hero. The only way to learn is to be humbled. And those who enjoy space heaters should know where the breaker box is.
This little workhorse lives under my writing desk. It was part of the dynamic duo that killed my power this winter.
Thank you for reading! I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants the last few weeks. Just getting something each week has been a small achievement. I hope you and yours are well.
I really like this one 👍
Paid $80 for this same “fix” this winter.