When roughly half your home goes dark but the rest works normally, that is a specific and recognisable pattern. It usually means you have lost one of the two legs of power feeding your panel.
This is not the same as a tripped breaker, and it is worth understanding the difference, because one of the causes is a genuine fire risk.
Why half a house goes dead
Standard homes in New Jersey are fed by two 120-volt legs. Your breaker panel alternates between them, so circuits are split roughly half and half. Lose one leg and about half the house dies while the other half stays on.
The usual causes:
- A utility issue on one leg. Sometimes the problem is outside your house entirely, at the drop or the transformer. Look at your neighbours. If several homes are affected, call the utility.
- A loose or burned main lug or main breaker. Inside your panel, at the top, where the service conductors land. This one is serious.
- A failed main breaker. One side stops passing current.
- A corroded or loose neutral. This is the dangerous one, and it has a distinctive symptom, below.
The symptom that means stop immediately
If lights are unusually bright in some rooms and dim in others, shut off your main breaker and call an electrician now.
That pattern points to a lost or failing neutral. When the neutral goes, voltage stops dividing evenly between the two legs. Some circuits get well over 120 volts while others get far less. That is how people lose televisions, computers, furnace boards and appliances in one event, and it can start a fire. Flickering that gets worse when a large appliance kicks on is the same warning.
What to check before calling
- Look outside. If neighbours are dark too, it is the utility.
- Check the main breaker. Cycle it fully off and back on once.
- Do not open the panel cover. The service conductors above the main are live even with the main off. This is the part of a house that is genuinely dangerous to poke at.
- Note the pattern. Which rooms work, which do not, and whether anything is unusually bright or dim. That tells an electrician a lot before they arrive.
Why this often ends in a panel replacement
Once a main lug or bus bar has overheated, the damage does not undo itself. Aluminium service conductors that have corroded at the lug, or a bus that has scorched under a loose main, generally mean the panel is finished. We see this most in panels from the 1960s through 1980s, and in a few brands with known failure histories.
If that is what you have, we will tell you plainly and price the replacement before starting. What we will not do is tighten a burned lug and send you an invoice for it.
What it costs
A diagnostic visit starts at $225, which covers the trip and the first hour of labor, including small fixes finished on the spot. Additional time is $125 per hour. If the repair turns into something larger, we price it before we do it.
Who to call
Voltus Energy Solutions is a licensed and insured New Jersey electrical contractor based in Montclair, NJ license #34EI01906000. A licensed electrician handles your job start to finish, and we answer the phone at (973) 382-9995 around the clock.
We serve homeowners across Essex, Union, Passaic and Morris counties, including Montclair, Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, Belleville, Nutley, Verona, Cedar Grove, West Orange, Orange, South Orange, Maplewood, Livingston, Caldwell, Millburn, Short Hills and Springfield.