I have an old fuse panel and the power has gone out in about half the house. I have checked and rechecked all the fuses and they are fine. Then while pondering my next step the power suddenly came back on. This was not a power outage on the grid as we still had some lights and recepticals working. It was also not a single fuse circuit. The power return on its own about ten minutes after I stopped working on the problem. I am wondering what would cause this to happen. I should note that we do experience some flickering of lights and the TV will at times power off for a second or two and then come back on. The power was off for at least an hour and a half.

Can you post a picture of the breaker or fuse pannel

Have you checked the actual power to the fuse to see if you are getting power to all the fuses.

It sounds like in the main OFF/ON switch of the fuse box. If you take it out, there may be fuses in it, if one of them go out, then 1/2 of the power will go out
Checking the power on both side of the breakers with a meter would be my next step

I am sorry I am having trouble posting the photo. However I did pull the two large cylindrical fuses in the on/off box of the fuse panel and switched them around in an effort to see if the power outage would switch to the other half of the house. There was no change. The part of this whole thing that has me baffled is that the power came back on without me doing anything. I had given up hope and was standing in the kitchen discussing our next step with my wife when all of a sudden the power came back on to the whole house. I would think it was an issue with the power supply to the house if not for the fact that it did not affect the whole house. I am not sure whether the flickering lights and TV going off and on is relevant or not. But the receptacle the TV is plugged into and the lights that flicker were a part of the house that was out.

When you lose 1/2 of a system it is probably the power feed cable for that side either loose at the box or weatherhead. Since you have tube fuses, swap them and see if the outages changes sides. If it does, it's the fuse, if not, it's the feed.

I agree with Brian. It appears to be a loose wire feeding one of the tube fuses.

If there is a way to shut off the power coming into the tube fuses, u can check the wires and tighten them up.

If unable to shut off would advice u get an electrician to check it out.

Chuck

If everything tests OK as far as fuses are concerned, it could very well be that the power company was working to repair a problem in the street. It could have been a bad neutral (ground) cable on the power line or in the manhole. A bad hot cable would do the same. And by "bad" I mean not making a tight connection. That could also cause flickering. Many times in outages half the house will have electric due to one power cable supplying power to one side of the house or apartment and another one supplying power to the other side of the house or apartment. Also when a power company loses one of their feeders, it can cause the lights to dim for a second or two until another feeder picks up the load. As far as the TV turning off, it could be that you were not getting the full 120 volts to power the TV from the power company momentarily because of them losing a feeder.