As an electrician, I get phone calls regarding power outages very often. Most of those calls are due to having partial power. The assumption is that if part of the power is out then you would need an electrician. If you have a couple rooms and the outlets are out or the lights in a number of rooms have suddenly gone out, then you should first check your breakers and see if any of them are tripped. If they are all on, then you may need an electrician.
However, when it seems half the power is out in the entire house then most likely you will end up needing to call your area's utility provider. There are three power lines coming into the meter base that feeds the house. Two of them are 120 volts and the third is the neutral line. These two 120-volt lines feed the entire house. If one of the connections at the transformer goes bad, then it would only send half of the power to house.
You can call an electrician first, however, if you're looking to save the service call fee and it's not an emergency, I would suggest calling the utility company first to make sure that the power issue is not on their side. This is more common than you think, and it's usually with power fed from underground services at the transformer pad. This is related to your lights flickering throughout the house as well. This is usually caused by the neutral that I mentioned earlier, which would be faltering or deteriorating. There is nothing wrong with calling your utility provider first as it saves time and money.
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