Power surge ruins appliances in 27 Saskatoon homes

More than two dozen Saskatoon families will be shopping for new appliances after a mistake made by Saskatoon Light and Power.
 
On Tuesday crews installed a wrong transformer that provided twice as much voltage to homes in the 400 block of Montreal and Whitney Avenues.
 
“My fridge is shot, my stove is shot, my walk-in bathtub … furnace went, microwave went, coffee maker went. You name it, it went,” resident Jim Isaac said.
 
Twenty-seven homes on the two streets were affected. Most of them had furnace issues right away. The city said they hired a local furnace company to go house-to-house and get them working as soon as possible.
 
“When they came to do the furnace at 11 at night … they demanded $513 at the door,” said Mary, a caller to Gormley on Thursday.

She said she’s lucky she had the money to pay for it and worries what some of her neighbours are going through.

Isaac estimates he’ll have to find between $10,000 and $12,000 dollars to replace everything in his home before he gets reimbursed. He said he can’t afford it because he’s on a fixed income.
 
Trevor Bell, director of Saskatoon Light and Power, said what happened is a rare occurrence and they will work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
 
“We really do apologize to our customers. We realize that we’ve created an inconvenience here.”
 
Bell said the city will do it’s best to facilitate claims, whether or not affected people have insurance.