Unexplained electricity cuts to our house only - HELP!

[Owain]

That's so you can start snipping unneccessary matter from the quoted text.

Owain

[John Rumm]

You mean like:

[The Wanderer]

I was trying to make a diagnosis on what the OP had said. With significantly more information, I've since revised my opinion and the OP is aware of this.

[Huge]

I already posted the URL. OEQuotefix.

[Peter Boulton]

OP here. Finally after several days of misery and edf call centre staff implying the fault is our site of the meter we finally have resolution! It seems I was mistaken in terms of how the power gets to our house. It actually comes into the village overhead, but the unique supply to our house comes down a pole, under the ground, over the road and (under ground) into our house. Last night we had a decent edf engineer (they exist!) who arranged for a team to check the pole today, where the fault was found and repaired (touch wood)!

Thanks to everyone who took the trouble to reply to this post, except the person who told me off for top-posting. (However, I am a reformed character now as you can see!)

Pete

[tony sayer]

EDF eh?, nuff said .. yep they do have the odd good guys and a woman engineer or two around;!...

[Colin Wilson]

Sorry for replying to this so late, but i've been on holiday :-}

If you're losing _all_ power, then it's probably one of the following:

a) a fault on the mains side - possibly a faulty joint somewhere* b) loose fuse in the cutout (main fuse) - the RECs problem to sort** c) loose tails from the cutout to the meter (as above)** d) loose tails from the meter to the consumer unit***

• have you reported each of the off-supply incidents ? - if so, the REC should have a record of each call. Sadly I don't think you're in line for compensation unless you reach three "off-supply" incidents of

18 hours or more in a 12 month period. If you suspect your installation is fine, and it's the supply side dropping out, ask for them to install a voltage recorder - they might threaten wild charges if it shows nothing up, in which case, it's worth having a quick word with Energywatch. ** a loose connection is a potential fire hazard, and the REC should really be sending a shift electrician out to check their side of the installation. If the supply happens to be off when they arrive, even better, as it's proof the fault is not on your side. *** as ** above, but with the added complication that you're not supposed to cut the seal on the meter to check / replace the tails yourself. Ask your REC to fit a double pole switch - if they want to know why, tell them you're unable to work on your side of the installation safely as you have no means of isolation unless they fit one (without, of course, cutting seals and pulling the main fuse)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Irony doesn't travel well to the US.

[Andy Hall]

English didn't either.....

[Bob Eager]

Can't even quote my name right..

Sometimes. You base that on a *very* small sample.

[w_tom]

Actually, your latest post now violated RFC1855. And was harder to read. Back to the technicals. Peter - curious resolution to your problem. Such faults are usually obvious due to audible noise and due to light (sparks) at night. Why was this not heard or seen previously? This should have also created medium wave interference. (Electric companies around here have long used directonal radio receivers to find such faults.) Did radio interference exist?

[Bob Eager]

He's moving sideways towards lightning, folks...

[John Rumm]

Who listens to medium wave these days?

[Frank Erskine]

More than you might think.

Some BBC local radio statios split their output, for example during sports coverage, into MW/DAB and VHF. Those without DAB may have to resort to MW for certain programming. Also university radio stations frequently use AM.

Regards -

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed. Radio 5 live cricket..motor rainmg..if you car hasn;t got DAB its the last resort.

Also BBC world service when driving abroad.

[Peter Boulton]

There were no visible sparks from the pole, although it is some way from our house, on the other side of the road. We listen to MW a lot - 5 Live for Mrs B (violating RFCxxxx) and Talk Sport for me (explains a lot - violates every RFC in the book and explains why I am an ignorant top poster, reborn bottom poster, but like my lagers) but didn't get any interference. Although possibly the distance of the pole to the house may have explained this.

I definitely won't rise to any more netiquette posts. If anyone feels my posts are illiterate or impossible to follow please just ignore them... it's that easy. To everyone else, thank you for all your time in trying to help me sort this thing out.

Pete