I will be without power today while the power meter's socket on the house is replaced. This is a long story.
It began when my brother, a retired electrician, painted the interior of my home. (I cannot get on my knees or a ladder anymore.) Some of the electrical sockets and switches had been painted in the past, so I decided to replace them. James, my brother, had is outlet tester and he tested the first outlet. The ground of the socket was open...no ground. After looking at the existing ground to the meter, I decided to install two 8 ft ground rods and replace the existing 6 gauge ground wire, which had four saddle-clamped splices in a 14 inch span, with a heftier 4 gauge wire.
When we were ready to connect the new wire into the meter socket, I called the electric company and the transformer was taken off the line. Upon removing the set screw that clamps the ground wire to the meter socket, I found that the hole in the socket was stripped. No wonder! The aluminum socket had a thin casting. It was so thin that I would not consider tapping and installing a larger diameter set screw. I connected the copper ground wire under an aluminum ground wire saddle. Shhh....I didn't want to be without power. I decided that a new meter socket would be necessary.
I contacted a licensed electrician because the replacement of the meter base requires coordination of the electric company and the county's electrical inspector. My brother and I are slow (81 and 73) and I want to finish this work in one day. We feared running into something simple requiring additional parts or tools. My home is not close to town.
The work is being done today and I'm kissing $2000 good-bye. However, I won't have another TV and refrigerator wiped out by a nearby lightning strike as I did a few years ago.
Oh! The real problem was a missing ground wire (edit) from the neutral bar to the ground connection in the breaker box.
Edit: Power was off about six hours.