Peter Kelly

Thanks for the comments. I am an amateur "electrician" at best.
The circuit in question is 220 only one electrical outlet on it. At the time of the storm, there were no devices on this circuit. The circuit is also completely inside the house not subject to weather elements.
I have also inspected the panel the best I could and could see no loose connections or other defects.

I have power to the rest of the house so this is not a priority right now.

I did do a bit of work on this recently, reluctantly since I do not want to lose power to the rest of the house.

There was an unused two fuse fuse block in the panel so I decided to try that instead of the old one. I turned off the power to the house. For the circuit in question, I put in the two fuse fuse block with two new fuses and tested the circuit for continuity and there was continuity. So, presumably, the circuit was good.I closed the panel door and turned the power on. There was a flash of light out of the sides of the panel and a burning smell. All the power to the rest of the house went out but no other fuses were blown.

As before, I then turned the power off and then back on and the POWER TO THE REST OF THE HOUSE CAME BACK ON. I inspected the fuses in question and they were all black inside the glass. I have never seen glass fuses blown like that.

So, the really mysterious part is why the power comes back on when this circuit blows and the power is turned off and then back on.

At this point, I am reluctant to bring in a professional electrician as this may be a non-standard event and may take considerable time to debug.

Somewhat in connection to all this, I do like the occam's razor comment. Occam's seems in a lot of cases to be used as an out to explain things when it may take a lot of time and effort to find the real explanation. In our increasingly technological world where more and more variables are at play, it may be just too time consuming and costly to do real analysis. And, of course, this may result in some really disastrous consequences down the techno road. Computer systems are excellent examples of this where versions of software that have not been fully tested are unleashed on the users and it is up to the users to find the bugs and report them. In many cases, all the bugs will never be found. That's maybe ok for word processing software but for systems that run our nuclear plants, stock markets, air traffic control, etc. not such a good idea.

I had a very bizarre electrical event after a recent windstorm and outage. I will describe the resulting problem first and then describe the event after.
A two glass fuse use block (these are old design) blew on my electrical panel during or after a power outage. Each glass fuse 20 amp. Each of these glass fuses seemed really BLOWN compared to blown fuses I have seen in the past. And the contact on one side was scorched. I have attached photos.

If I now turn the power off to the main panel, remove this two fuse block, insert two new glass fuses, turn the power on, the two fuses will blow. Note: I have checked this circuit which is for an electrical outlet and could see nothing amiss. The presumption then is that the problem with this two fuse block is a result of the power outage itself rather than the circuit involved since that circuit was fine before the outage.

So, my question is: can this two fuse block itself blow or be defective over and above the two glass fuses themselves? In other words, if I turn the power off, put two 20 amp fuses into a new two fuse block, insert that block and turn the power on, will all be OK?

This bizarre event occurred in this fashion:
There was a windstorm and power outage in the morning. The power came back on about 11AM. I went to town and on the way back I saw some power trucks in the neighborhood and assumed the power would be out when I got home. Sure enough the power was out.

I waited for the power to come back on and at dark noted that a street light was on above my house. I walked down below my house and a street light was on. I went to my neighbors' house across the way and she said the POWER HAD BEEN ON ALL DAY!!

But my power was out. This made no sense to me at all. I thought on this a while. I thought I should exhaust all possible remedies first, so I went in the basement, turned off the power to my main panel and turned it back on. THE POWER CAME ON!

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Anyway, the next morning I thought I should inspect the panel. I shut the power off and in examining it, found the above problem with the two fuse block. I put in two new fuses, turned the power on and the fuses blew as described above.

So, my second question is: what is the explanation for this, to me (electrical non-expert) bizarre event? ( I have told this story to a few people and they are mystified.)

The larger message may be to turn off your main entry panel during an outage. Of course, how do you know when the power is back on?

Thanks,  David, I will consider the hydraulic cement technique.

As has been properly pointed out, drilling the rock and then removing it, particularly in an area 3' in diameter is quite problematic. Then there is the problem that the size of the rock is unknown and thus the risk of destabilizing the well walls.  

And as John asks: "How would you install lateral underground pipes to a 9 ft deep well?" I have the same question. Possibly, I did not explain my situation exactly enough. As the summer here progresses, the groundwater level drops down from say 3' down, to 4' down, etc. until the groundwater level is near or below the foot valve. If the drought continues the groundwater level continues to drop, say 9', 10' etc. So, since water seeks its own level, I don't see  how trenching and bringing more water in will help, since my well will still be only 9' down (and the foot valve is even above that.).

And here is an interesting Deepening An Existing Dug Well story:

I was at the gas station the other day and I saw a large pickup truck at the pumps with welldrilling stickers on it. It also mentioned a few other things like core drilling. Anyway, I took note of the company name and went inside the shop to get a coffee.

Shortly thereafter a fellow appeared at my side and asked "Are you interested in well drilling?" I was quite taken aback, thinking he was psychic or something.
I replied " Well, yes, I need my dug well deepened. How did you know I was interested in well drilling."

He explained that he saw the expression on my face when I saw his truck signs and that he could see " the wheels turning in my head." I found this most remarkable and asked if he was in sales. He laughed and said no.

I said "You are in the wrong business, you should be a professional poker player if you can read faces that well."
Anyway, we had a good yarn and he was quite interested in my project.

Thanks again for all the helpful and thoughtful  comments. This certainly is a very delicate project and safety is uppermost in my mind.

Thanks for all the interesting replies and comments.

As mentioned the main concern and unknown is the size and integrity of the rock at the bottom of the well. There is, as has been mentioned, a great risk of destabilising the well walls. The diameter of the well now is 3' which makes going from 9' to 13' very dicey to say the least as also mentioned. I will have to explore and see if there are any professionals locally who do such work.

I did do some research and came up with these two explosive devices for those interested:

MIcro Blaster, apparently used by some folk to exploit old mine tailings amongst other things. Drill hole must be DRY so would not work in my case.


Then, Boulder Buster which actually works in a wet environment and uses the water for energy transfer and shock value.


Of course drilling down in a 9' hole with an internal combustion drill excellent ventilation would be needed for starters.

I have a dug well which is about 9' deep. Local lore has it that they hit a large rock when digging and then stopped. I have been down in the well and confirmed it sits on large rock. It is lined with rock and has a modern concrete cap. This well is next to a marshy area. Neighbors' well are down about 13' and do not ever go dry.

We have periodically had droughts where the well level gets too low to use. We collect rainwater for our garden so when droughty we use that water to flush toilet, wash etc. Solar shower for especial enjoyment. With fall rains, the well comes back and we are good until following summer.

Even though we happily live around this, the droughts are getting worse and more frequent. I am loathe to drill a well. Lots of stories about arsenic, using water purifiers, etc. Plus the cost. Plus the loss of an existing resource.

SO, since the existing well sits on a large rock, I am wondering if it might be possible to pump the well out, keep pumping it out and go down the well and drill numerous holes down about four feet into the rock. Then use explosives or some other means to fracture the rock. (Local lore has it also that explosives were commonly used in well construction but the use today tightly controlled.) Or, absent explosives to jackhammer four feet into the well base.

The last obstacle in all this would be the size of the rock. Let's say the base rock is 6' thick then its integrity would have to be shattered in order to allow the water below and to the side to filter through. Alternatively if the base rock is only 2' thick then a further 2' of digging needed.

One very important consideration is all this is to be sure that the integrity of the existing well walls and structure is maintained.

I have looked on the net regarding my situation and can find nothing similar. I also note that there are a lot of folks around here in a similar well situation yet there seems to be no one offering a Well Augmentation Service. Usually, their wells are not on rock but simply need to be deepened.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.