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I spend part of the winter in a condo in Quintana Roo, Mexico, which is a subtropical area, with normal daytime high temperatures in the upper twenties to low thirties celsius, and nighttime temperatures in the low twenties. Whenever we get a cool spell, and the temperature goes below twenty degrees celsius at night (about 17 or 18) our electrical power goes out and is not restored till the temperature rises in the morning. To make things more complicated, there are three electrical lines serving our complex, and the one serving our building goes out more than the other two, in the same weather. Sometimes the power goes out on some floors, sometimes throughout the building. Does anyone have any idea what could cause this?

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    Guesstimate only: multiple people using electric heaters overload system and trip breakers.. – ATCSVOL Feb 11 '22 at 23:00
  • @ATCSVOL Only if you don't have lots of people with AC for when its hot. – DKNguyen Feb 11 '22 at 23:01
  • @DKNguyen Electric heaters will normally use two to three times the current as it's AC counterpart. – JACK Feb 11 '22 at 23:09
  • @JACK Do they? I always thought AC used more since ...heat so much more efficient. Well I guess where I am most of our heating is natural gas. – DKNguyen Feb 11 '22 at 23:17
  • @JACK An electric heater is near 100% efficient for the power input at the heater. I don't imagine an AC being like that. – DKNguyen Feb 11 '22 at 23:47
  • If only your building, not neighbourhood, then a problem in the building, maybe nuisance, maybe dangerous. – crip659 Feb 11 '22 at 23:50
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    @DKNguyen. Only in certain senses. Simple electric heaters produce heat from input electricity at a 1:1 ratio thanks to thermodynamics. AC provides *more* cooling than the input electricity. It can do this without violating thermodynamics because it's just moving the heat outside. This is also why heat pumps are more efficient in the winter. – Khrrck Feb 12 '22 at 00:41
  • @DKNguyen My point is simply that it takes more power to heat a home than to cool it. I have a 3 ton AC package with a 9.6 kw electric heater in south Florida. I use 20 Amps to cool and 40 amps to heat. We size breakers, transformers for normal AC loads. If we get a cold snap and everyone turns on their heat, we can trip breakers. – JACK Feb 12 '22 at 01:27
  • Interesting.... – DKNguyen Feb 12 '22 at 02:39
  • @DKNguyen HVAC ratings are in BTU/hr. *(Most people say "BTU" when they really mean BTU/hr, you just have to accept that)*. [1 watt = 3.41 BTU/hr.](https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM?t=302) Got it? Now, A/C units are rated in SEER, which is **BTU/hr per watt**. If A/C can't exceed 100% efficiency, the maximum *possible* SEER would be 3.1, right? A different scale is used with heat - **watts of heat created / watts of electricity spent**. Resistive heaters have a 1.00 COP. Now pick any random heat pump product and look at SEER and COP. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 12 '22 at 04:21
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    cool weather is associated with strong winds in this region. Strong winds are associated with line dropouts. You may be just experiencing interruptions to power due to line, pole and transformer faults. – david Feb 12 '22 at 04:55
  • When I was doing some mission work in Mexico we had to bring generators to guarantee power to run our tools. They had regular blackouts. If one line is going out more often than 2 others I would think there was a power issue + David. – Ed Beal Feb 13 '22 at 05:54
  • Can you ask the power company when it happens? – rogerdpack Feb 19 '22 at 22:43

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