Burying news

I'm having trouble trying to find bloody links myself now, but I suppose that's how it always is :-}

OK, try Reyrolle, LMT, SWS C4X for a variety of hits :-}

J&P were known to suffer from rust to the welded seams on the top plate of the breakers - after the fatality they were all taken out of service and had a maintenance done on them, and from what I remember a fair number were taken out of service as they were out of design spec.

The metalwork where the rust was removed was not painted to help prevent recurrence, and it is only by the now 12 yr maintenance regime that any problems are going to come to light.

Other switchgear has seem permali linkages delaminating, voltage transformers with faulty sprung connectors, etc etc.

Unfortunately I don't have access to the spec sheets any more, but given the length of time the equipment has been in operation versus its' original expected lifespan - but you don't buy a classic car unless you're going to poke your head under the bonnet a little more frequently than with a modern engine...

That's probably a very strong possibility, but the cost of replacing all switchgear over, say, 30 years old, is likely to be phenomenal.

Privatisation has lead to the budgets for this type of ongoing work to be cut (you don't have to just pick on switchgear as an example - when was the last time you saw cleated wiring being replaced in any quantity, why do we still have iron clad cutouts still on the system etc.)

The industry has long term ongoing network maintenance costs that you can't really avoid for any length of time, but that's exactly what has been happening. Delaying what should have been planned / programmed works has got us into a position where all the remedial work is getting close to unmanageable in scale and cost.

I'm drunk anyway - ignore the rant :-}

Reply to
Colin Wilson
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In message , Andy Hall writes

The tone from the contractors replacing a stretch of 415V cable lying on the bed of the river and quietly fizzing was very much *if it isn't broke, we don't fix it*. True to their words they have not returned to bury the replacement cable which now bobs up and down on the surface as the (elephants trunk) ducting they used to protect it, floats. One day some enterprising child will poke something sharp into what looks to be pvc insulated, unarmoured ally 3 core. It must be within the elastic limits otherwise it would have fatigued and fractured long since.

On the other side of the bridge is the 11kV feed to our end of the village. This at least is armoured and pitch wrapped. However time has corroded the steel pipe it was laid in such that the whole assembly is secured by barbed wire to prevent it sagging and damming the water flow.

Where this supply T's off from the overhead I have *hooked* it with a conventional plough: probably less than 9" deep in an arable field. Admittedly close to the pole:-)

Freedom Group are working on behalf of EDF Energy to refurbish the 11kV overhead which increasingly sounds like a patch up job. I'll be convinced otherwise when they remove the lattice support pylons which predate me and WW2.

regards

Reply to
Tim Lamb

To quote a colleague of mine (on the subject of the offshore oil industry), "when They say that They've got to spend $5,000,000,000 on repairs and maintenance, They mean that They've been saving Themselves a billion a year for the last half-decade, and are now only fixing the problems They have to because They got caught killing 167 of Their workers." So, Network Electric are no different to Network Rail, RailTrack, BigOil, ChernobylOpCo or any of the rest? Film at eleven.

Reply to
Aidan Karley

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