3hr power cut thanks to some trees

[harry]

Strewth, you are a whinger. You're lucky that's al you have to worry about.

[harry]

Electrical faults happen all the time. If there is danger they can, will and should turn the power off as soon as possible. People can only be notified if there is a planned shut down. They can shut down when they like, they are entitled to come into your house if there is danger. They can even break into your house if there is danger. You are living on cloud nine. Now stop whining and get into the real world.

Do you read the Guardian by any chance?

[harry]

My heart bleeds. If you are so concerned, buy a UPS for your computer.

[Dave Liquorice]

Oh di-dums.

I guess they could have left the fault and the repeated arcing and possible auto-recloser trips could have damaged even more of your stuff.

Lots of short cuts are far more annoying than a simple, off, cut back the trees, on. Also the excess load/shorts could damage the local substation and that could mean you were off for a couple of days...

Last power outage here was 36 hours. Get a life and work out a basic backup plan. Probably don't need as much as we have but a gas lantern (long run time, produces heat, no batteries to go flat) and small gas camping stove are the minimum "extra" kit. If your computer is important treat it to a small UPS.

[Dave Liquorice]

Trees grow story end of. People plant trees under power lines, they grow.

One reported they have to act. The coud simply have switched the supply off until the start of the next working day cut back the trees then switched back on.

Which you prefer off from 1700 to 2000 or off from 1700 to 1200 next day?

What are you going to be like in a few years times when the lights start to go out due to lack of generating capacity?

[Tim Watts]

Why couldn't they be considered negligent for not inspecting and taking remidial action beforehand?

[Dave Liquorice]

Of course these days many people don't know how to make their own entertainment without some electronic gismo. I bet there is many a household without any board games, books, packs of cards etc.

Aye, taught me that a power cut is no great problem provided you have thought about it and have some back up. Lights go out here and there is no great panic just an resigned "lets get the lanterns out". The kids don't panic because we have never paniced, just get on with what needs to be done. The biggest issue is getting to torches that are kept in known locations in the absolute pitch black (or slight glow from LEDs on UPS backed up kit).

[Tim Watts]

The roads are a danger - look at RTA stats.

Do you proposed to close all of them?

The real world that the rest of us live in has risks.

You cannot reduce risk to zero - you seek a reasonable balance.

[Robin]

The patient.

It is not just the 3 hours your power was off. Suppose you were a patient on a ventilator who had seen the cables arcing and reported the problem in the morning. Would you have been happy for the work to be delayed until the next day (or the day after that - see below) in order to allow consumers to be given notice of the disconnection - something which very probably can't even start to be done until someone has visited the site and reported back?

I am unclear as to how much delay would be needed to leave you less disgruntled. How much notice of disconnection would you consider reasonable and when could it reasonably be given? Eg would you be content to be phoned at 03:00 to be told the power would be off from

07:00 to 10:00? Or would you want them to leave the call until the following morning and postpone the work for 24 hours so as to contact as many people as possible?

None of this means I wouldn't be annoyed if the power went off unexpectedly for 3 hours. But it happens sometimes (even here in the middle of London). And I don't want to pay for an electricity supply where it never happens: the price of perfection is prohibitive

I rather doubt that question admits a simple answer. But I am fairly sure that the company's defence to *any* claim would be weaker if it delayed action in order to identify the customers who would be affected, to give those customers notice of the time they would be disconnected, and then wait until that time before starting work.

[Michael Kilpatrick]

I didn't say they couldn't. When I said "I disagree" I was referring to having missed the point or not. If, as someone has suggested here, they do inspect power lines regularly either by helicopter or otherwise, then clearly they were negligent. Of course, it only comes to the attention of the courts of justice if someone gets hurt...

Michael

[Nightjar]

It is a statutory duty, under Section 29 of the Electricity Act 1989, to protect the public from danger arising from the generation, transmission or supply of electricity. That means that any potentially dangerous situation must be dealt with immediately it is known about.

It is the land owner's responsibility to ensure that trees do not encroach upon overhead lines. However, as working near live overhead lines takes specialist training, the electricity companies do regular helicopter checks on the National Grid and will do work on trees near lower voltage lines, if they are made aware of the need.

Colin Bignell

[Michael Kilpatrick]

How about five minutes, and a knock on the door?

[I'm assuming that's not going to happen if they have to cut off 10,000 houses, obviously!)

Or just a van with a loudhailer? I bet 40 years ago they would have done so, but those vans with loudhailers seem to be out of fashion. Even politicians used to use them during election campagns (although I can't imagine why they thought it would gain votes). Maybe they still do?

Hang on, isn't there some sort of obligation to notify any business premises if they are going to cut the power manually? I thought there was. That's obviously more important than my ability to finish writing my email or to boil a kettle, especially if the business has machinery or computers.

Michael

[Nightjar]

I was working for an Electricity Board at the time. Three hours was chosen because emergency lights should be capable of working for four hours on batteries and they should have had enough time between cuts to recharge.

Colin Bignell

[Michael Kilpatrick]

Oh, blimey, now we've got to decide whether those trees are part of a verge which is Cambridgeshire County Council's concern, or whether they are actually part of the field which they enclose. Hmmm, fun...

Michael

[Nightjar]

Because it is the land owner's responsibility not to allow trees to interfere with power lines, not the electricity companies'. The electricity company only has a duty after they know there is a danger to the public.

Colin Bignell

[Michael Kilpatrick]

It's more a question of whether the households with said board games, books, etc have also got some candles to see them by!

Talking of candles, I've got this stupid rechargeable lantern, supposedly 1 million candles, or something. I rarely use it, but I charged it up last week or so. It's rubbish, and it's the second one I've had - the first one developed a fault, a broken wire inside, and had to be returned.

This one doesn't keep a decent charge in the battery at all. We put four candles on the table to eat dinner by, and I rested the lantern on its base so that it could shine up and reflect off the ceiling to give some distributed light. After about five minutes the lantern was not contributing at all. It made no difference in the presence of four real candles.

Absolute piece of junk. If you can't leave it in a cupboard, supposedly fully charged, and make good use it in a power cut, what's the point?

Michael

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its at times like this I bless linux

[Tim Watts]

I would argue that since they *know* that private landowners cannot all be trusted, they should be inspecting anyway. It's surely easier to serve notice on the landowner than to have to bugger about turning the power off later.

As has been said, trees do not grow that fast, so surely this could be done when they do other inspections on the line and poles?

[Michael Kilpatrick]

Well, well...I've just been speaking to our county councillor - primarily because I suspected the trees were the council's and that they would have to collect all the debris.

They were indeed. And what's more, the county had given permission *some time ago* for the trees to be pruned because (the councillor suspects, from what the county officers were able to tell him) that EDF (or whoever it is) was aware of a growing hazard earlier in the year.

However, if what the workmen said last night was true, they did the pruning in response to an emergency status triggered by a report of arcing earlier in the day.

So, they knew about the imminent problem and had asked permission to hack the county's tress, but didn't do anything about it *until* arcing occurred.

That's not very impressive, is it?

Michael

[Nightjar]

If you want that sort of service, just to deal with a minority of land owners who don't meet their responsibilities, be prepared to pay a lot more for your electricity.

When the industry was nationalised, it was usually easier for the Board to do the work for the land owner without charge, but that did depend upon the land owner asking for it to be done.

They do, but an entire tree could grow in the period between routine inspections for most low voltage lines. There is not a lot that goes wrong with them, apart from trees growing too close (0.8m for a 230/415v distribution line) and a wooden pole should last at least 25 years.

Colin Bignell