This summer hates us

Either that or our house hates us. It's determined to suck every last dime out of us. First our A/C broke this summer. That's a hefty bill to pay. Then my car broke down and on top of getting it fixed our friend mechanic "HIGHLY" recommended we get new tires. We knew they were terrible but had been putting off getting them replaced. But I guess when you have to, you have to. 

After all of that, we thought we were over the worst of it. But then the appliances in my kitchen just quit working. My dishwasher stopped. My oven kept shutting off mid cooking cycle. But the worst part was that my fridge started blinking off. I called my dad since I knew it had to be something electrical. There was no way all our appliances would break at the same time. It was definitely electrical. It took a few days to figure it out, but ultimately we discovered that our entire panel was burning up and needed to be completely replaced. Lucky us huh! (insert major eye roll). It took a few days to find the right replacement panel (and we ended up having to upgrade because we couldn't find the right size) so in the mean time we were on major energy consumption reduction, due to the fact that our house was fire hazard. Yeah..fun times I tell ya. After much back and forth, many phone calls to my dad, lots of help from my brother and a minor (ok major) blow out from me to the electrical company for their complete apathy to our situation, we had a new panel in and all is safe in our house again. I know there are far worse things to happen, but I'm really praying for a little break from major expenses. We need some time to catch our breath.

Incase you didn't know, because I didn't previous to all of this mess, that black bar should not be burnt and melting. The top part in the third picture was where the circuits to my kitchen were, hence the non working appliances. They weren't receiving power from the panel. The melted part in the middle is where our main breaker is. Not a good one to have melting. That's a major fire hazard.

And here we have our nice new HUGE panel that can fit many more circuits than we need. It better last a lifetime is all I'm saying.

And here's my meter, on the ground, where it most definitely should not be. But the power company didn't think it was enough of an emergency to get over to my house to unlock the stupid key so that my electrician could replace the meter, thus giving me power to my house. So after over 24 hours of waiting (and having no power) I called and chewed them out. They claimed I never called the day before, which I don't believe them at all because they document everything in their systems everytime someone calls. Oddly enough someone was out at my house within 15 minutes after my phone call and my meter was back on my panel and working within 30. Stinks to have to get mad to get anything done, but I was beyond the point of being polite.