Power Outage Checklist for California Homeowners
How to tell a utility outage from a problem inside your own house, what to check safely, and how to decide between a generator and a battery.
Service directory — California
MAIN 200AThe first thing to establish in any outage is whether the problem is on the utility's side of the meter or yours. Everything else follows from that answer, and it takes about two minutes to determine.
Step 1: Is it just you?
Look outside. Are neighbors' lights on? Are streetlights lit? Check your utility's outage map on your phone. If the neighborhood is dark, it is a utility outage and there is nothing an electrician can fix. Report it and wait.
If everyone else has power and you don't, the fault is yours, and it is on the service side or in your panel.
Step 2: Is it partial?
This distinction matters more than people realize. Walk the house and note what works.
Some circuits dead, others fine: a tripped breaker or a branch circuit fault. Manageable, often not urgent.
Half the house dead, and 240 volt appliances behaving oddly: your dryer runs slowly, the AC won't start, lights in half the house are dim or unusually bright. This is a lost leg, one of the two 120 volt halves of your service. It is a service-side problem, and the bright-lights version can damage electronics while you wait. Turn off large appliances and call an 24/7 emergency electrician.
Everything dead, neighbors fine: main breaker, service conductors or meter. Look at the panel and the meter from a safe distance for scorching or a burning smell. Don't open anything.
Step 3: What you can safely check
- Look at the breaker panel. A tripped breaker often sits slightly out of line with its neighbors. Push it fully off, then firmly on. Once.
- Check GFCI outlets in garages, bathrooms and outdoors for a tripped reset button.
- Check whether an outdoor subpanel or a disconnect at the AC has tripped.
Stop there. Do not remove a panel cover, do not touch the meter, and do not reset a breaker a second time if it trips again immediately.
Step 4: Call if any of these are true
- Burning smell anywhere, especially at the panel or an outlet.
- Visible scorching, melted plastic or a damaged meter.
- The main breaker itself has tripped.
- Half the house is out with everything else on the street lit.
- A downed line anywhere near the property. Stay well back and call 911 and the utility first.
- Water in or near the panel.
Getting through a long outage
PSPS events and storm damage in California can run for days rather than hours. Keep freezers shut, a full freezer holds for around 48 hours untouched. Charge devices and a power bank early. Keep a flashlight per person and skip candles. If you run a portable generator, it goes outside, well away from windows and never in a garage even with the door open, because carbon monoxide is the leading cause of generator deaths.
Unplug sensitive electronics. Restoration surges are real, and whole-house surge protection at the panel is inexpensive insurance if outages are routine where you live.
Generator or battery?
| Standby generator | Home battery | |
|---|---|---|
| Runtime | Days, as long as fuel lasts | Hours to a day, longer with solar |
| Noise | Audible outdoors | Silent |
| Fuel | Natural gas or propane | None |
| Maintenance | Annual service, weekly self-test | Minimal |
| Best for | Multi-day PSPS and storm outages | Short outages, solar homes, time-of-use shifting |
For multi-day outages, runtime decides it and the generator wins. For frequent short interruptions, or if you already have solar, a battery is quieter and switches over instantly with no transfer delay. Some homes end up with both.
Either way, the critical detail is the transfer equipment. It has to isolate your house from the utility completely, because backfeeding a de-energized line puts line crews at risk. That is not a DIY component. Our generator installation page covers how the switching is set up.
Before the next one
Label your panel legibly. Photograph it and keep the photo on your phone. Know where your main disconnect is. Test your GFCIs. If your panel is a Zinsco, a Federal Pacific, or a fuse box, deal with it before it becomes an emergency rather than during one.
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