After every serious ice storm we get calls from homeowners who reset the main once the power came back, then heard or smelled something that sent them out to the breaker again. The lesson we keep relearning: an ice load that bent your service mast or pulled the weatherhead off plumb does not always announce itself at the breaker. The neutral on the drop can be compromised in ways that show up as flickering lights, dim appliances, or a fire two days later. Here is the inspection sequence we walk on storm cleanup calls, and when the utility gets called before we do.
If the power is still out
Keep the main OFF until you have walked the exterior. A storm that knocked your line out probably did some mechanical work on the service entrance. When the line crew restores power, the utility's reclosers can pulse the line several times trying to clear a fault. If your service drop has a broken neutral or a damaged conductor, those reclosure attempts can do real damage to anything plugged in. Main off until cleared is the right starting position.
What to look at outside, before anything else
Walk the building from the street side first. You are looking for evidence the storm did mechanical work on your service entrance.
- Service mast plumb. Stand back and sight up the mast against the wall behind it. Any visible lean, any bend at the through-roof boot, or rust streaks running down the wall below the boot is a problem. A mast that has been torqued by ice load may look almost straight but will have separated the seal where it passes through the roof.
- Weatherhead intact. The mushroom fitting at the top where the utility conductors enter. Cracked plastic body, missing insulation cap, conductors pulled to one side, or a visible gap at the seal where wires enter the mast - any of those is a call before you energize anything.
- Drop conductors. The triplex from the utility pole to the weatherhead. Has a branch come down on it? Is one of the three conductors visibly closer to the others than the other two (suggests the spacer has failed)? Is the cable abrading against a tree limb that was not touching it last week?
- Meter base. Look for rust streaks at the bottom seam, water visible inside the glass, any soot or scorching on the meter face. A meter that took a hit from a tree branch or had water driven into it by freezing rain is not safe to re-energize without an inspection.
- Tree contact anywhere. A tree that is now leaning into the drop, or a branch resting on the service conductors, is a Hydro One or Alectra call - not an electrician call. They cut, they de-energize, they restore. We do not touch the utility side of the meter.
When to call the utility first
The dividing line is clear: anything from the meter base outward (drop, weatherhead, mast above the meter, the conductors and the connections) belongs to the utility. Anything from the meter base inward (service-entrance cable from meter to panel, the panel itself, branch circuits) is the customer's responsibility and our work.
- Hydro One for most of Muskoka and rural Ontario - outage map and report line on the website.
- Lakeland Power for parts of Huntsville, Bracebridge, Sundridge and other in-town service.
- Alectra for Hamilton, Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Waterdown, Dundas.
- Burlington Hydro for Burlington.
- Oakville Hydro for Oakville.
Call them first if the service drop or mast is damaged. They will de-energize at the pole, do the utility-side repair, and then signal that the system is safe for us to do whatever electrician work is needed inside the meter base. The two trades coordinate every winter; the homeowner does not need to be the messenger.
Inside the house, before resetting the main
If the exterior is clean and the utility has not flagged your service for repair, walk the inside before throwing the main.
- The panel cover. Look at the closed panel. Smell at the seam. Burnt insulation has a specific acrid plastic smell that is unmistakable once you know it. Smell anything wrong, do not reset.
- The dead front and breakers. Look at the face of the breakers through the cover. Any heat discoloration, any breaker handle that looks melted or warped, is a stop.
- Service-entrance cable from meter to panel. Visible inside the house at the panel head - it should look identical to the way it always has. Heat-damaged jacket, visible scorching at the panel entry, or insulation that has slumped is a call before anything else.
- Any standing water near the panel. A basement that flooded during a thaw-and-freeze cycle can put water at the base of a panel mounted on a basement wall. Wet panel is a no-touch call.
Reset sequence when everything is clean
- Turn off every branch breaker first - all of them OFF.
- Throw the main. Pause for 30 seconds at the panel. Listen for hum or arcing. Sniff at the panel face.
- Turn on the heating and pump circuits first if the house has been cold - well pump, furnace, septic pump.
- One branch breaker at a time after that, with a pause between each. If a breaker will not reset (snaps right back), leave it off and identify what is on the circuit. Most "won't reset" breakers after a storm are tripped by water that got into a device on the circuit - garage GFCI, outdoor receptacle, basement light. That circuit stays off until the cause is found.
- After everything is on, walk the house. Listen for unusual fan noise, watch for flickering or unusually dim lights, check that the furnace cycles normally. Lights flickering or dimming when an appliance starts is a possible bad neutral on the service - call us.
Symptoms that mean the neutral is compromised
A broken or compromised service neutral is the storm aftermath that hurts the most equipment, because the voltage on each leg of the 120/240V service is no longer balanced. The lights on one side of the house run bright while the lights on the other side run dim. Electronics on the high-leg side burn out. A failing neutral is rarely visible from the ground - it is up at the weatherhead or in the splice at the utility pole.
- Lights flicker or dim when major appliances start (and they did not before)
- Half the house seems normal, half seems wrong
- Multiple electronic devices fail in a short span after the storm
- The furnace blower runs slow or makes new noises
Any of those after a storm is a "main off, call us, call the utility" combination. We can verify with a meter at the panel; the utility crew has to do the fix at the drop or pole.
Documentation matters for insurance
If anything was damaged by the storm - lost appliances, a failed panel, a burnt device - your insurer will want documentation. Photograph everything before you fix anything. An ESA permit and inspection on the repair scope is the gold-standard documentation, and we coordinate that as part of any post-storm service work.
When to call us
Post-storm work moves fast in our schedule because the calls come in waves. Service-entrance work in Hamilton, Burlington, Dundas, Stoney Creek, Huntsville, Bracebridge, and across both regions is the most common post-ice-storm job. Request a storm damage inspection and tell us what you have seen - we triage on the phone and get the urgent ones first.