3rd-party-caused Power Cuts

Why do they always last for almost exactly the same amount of time it takes for the bewildered panic to start wearing off and the process of elimination rules everything else out?

Everything suddenly goes quiet, you always start with whatever you're using at the time, switch it off and on again. Nope. Unlpug it, plug it back in. Nope. Then notice all the clocks & standby lights are gone. Flick all the sockets & light switches in every room (in case someone broke in and turned them all off at the same time), run through various apocalyptic scenarios in your mind (the Direct Debit didn't go through, freezer food defrosting, cordless phone dead, post-nuclear-blast isolation), open the fridge door to see if the light comes on & it doesn't. That's when you know it's serious. Check the fuse board, all OK but worth flicking an MCB or two down & up again just in case.

Just as you begin to stop being a plonker and think rationally about going next door to see if theirs has gone too, or using the mobile to phone the emergency number (wish I'd written it down), everything suddenly starts whirring, beeping and comes back to life. And the lights are on in every room.

I can guess who did it, it's the contractors who have been replacing a single street light for about 8 months now. They sawed the old one off at about 4 feet, obviously got fed up trying to remove the "stump" so they just draped some warning tape around it & put the new one in about 3 feet away and left them both there. Every now and then a truck arrives and a bloke has a bit of a go at the "stump" with a pneumatic drill, then he's off again. I think they were waiting for a delivery of non-matching tarmac to really finish the whole thing off nicely.

Reply to
Mentalguy2k8
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Ah yes, very likely. Round these parts there is an initiative by Boris the Mayor to make shopping cool again by havinga 'Greenway' for cyclists and new paving on the footways and more trees etc. Trouble is that all the various bits are bing done by contractors who seem unable to commuunicate either with the local council or each other. So you get the following. Great care is taken laying the paving with very nice cut outs were the existing trees are, they go awy satisfied with their work. a week or so later thare is a water leak or a gas leak. the investigations mean that to reach the leak a tree has to come out but not get replaced as it was the roots that are too close to the services in the first place. (Presumably nobody checked when it was originally planted). Out comes the tree, in goes a splodge of tar. two eeks later a minor explosiong occurs and cuts off the shops in half of the street, along come London Power Networks or whatever they are called this week, dig up some of the nice newly laid paving, fix the problem then put a dollop of tar in the hole and go. Now here we are, the scheme has not evn been completed yet and already parts of the newly laid footway look completely shitty. Does nobody actually look at the trees the services and the like before spending oodles of dosh on little bricks that make pretty patterns on the footway beforehand? also is it really wise to choose a footway materieal that clearly cannot be fixed by the various services who tend to be always digging up footways?

I happen to know that many of the streetscene contractors had an expo in a local hotel some months before the final contracts were signed, so my suspicion is that council officers and foklk from the London councils were taken there, wined and dined and asked to sign up to things. I'm sure the tenders were all above board oh yes, How would you like a free patio Mr engineer.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Not in general, no.

Unless things have changed, the contractors are not allowed to do permanent paving repairs after they have finished work, so their rule is to just fill the hole with whatever's handy and put a splodge of tarmac on top, no matter what the original surface was. In theory, the council are then supposed to come round later and reinstate the original surface, charging the utility company or whoever dug the hole for the work. Temporary repairs on tarmac don't show to the casual observer until the infill starts sagging, so people tend to think that a permanent repair has been done. If the finish is slabs or brick, then the tarmac is obvious.

Reply to
John Williamson

Mentalguy2k8 :

If you had a noisy UPS like mine the power loss would be apparent within a couple of seconds, no time for panic or bewilderment.

Reply to
Mike Barnes

Happens with the water too, usually when I'm out. Usually when SWMBO is just about to go out. SWMBO does not have the innate understanding that we have of which way a tap has to be turned to turn it on, or turn it off.

I see you are ahead of me.

Reply to
Graham.

When living in the States, nothing irritated me more than their propensity to have two identical taps at a sink with opposite threads. Your SWMBO would have been even more confused.

We've got a set like that here, too. *smack*

Reply to
Tim Streater

Those have become common here too. I think they emulate the "elbow taps" once only seen in operating theatre scrub rooms.

Reply to
Graham.

They're fine in that context, because the elbow lever gives a clue. It's when you get ordinary cross-heads like that it's a pain.

Reply to
Tim Streater

I have a fairly simple test for an area powercut - are the emergency lights on in the village hall. It is worth having a simple emergency light in the kitchen or living room since that is where you are most likely to be if the power fails and get plunged into darkness. Something around the 10W mark and a 6Ah accumulator float charged.

I have a couple of emergency lights and an LED torch rigged so that it always glows very slightly. Enough to see by when dark adapted.

Chance would be a fine thing. If we go down there is not much prospect of repair until the storm abates or everywhere else is already fixed.

It beats decapitating them with the euphemistically named single vehicle incident which takes out one on the A19 most weeks. It is amazing that people can't drive without hitting street furniture!

Talking of street repairs any idea what the difference in price is for a street repair where they scrape off ordinary bitumen surface (tailings to a local end user) vs allegedly coal tar based (aka major carcinogenic hazard that has to be disposed of under extreme control)?

Our back road was recently resurfaced and they got the volume of tailings and probably the type both wrong!

Reply to
Martin Brown

Internet goes down Click, click, click pathetically Traceroute, yes it's really the internet and not the router Stick head out of window Ah, there's a Virgin van parked outside and a bloke fiddling in the cabinet Time to go do something else, it'll be back in half an hour

The electricity version of same is: Are the streetlights out, or is it just us? All the streetlights, or just every third? Play count-the-phases as to how serious the problem is

Theo

Reply to
Theo Markettos

BTDTGTTS

Reply to
polygonum

Most towns have an office that is supposed to co-ordinate that sort of stuff. But you can't plan for the unexpected. And they have got rid of their highways depts and put bimbos/idiots in charge.

Reply to
harryagain

and back in the real world it is the ONLY repair which will last until the local dustcart or firse engine falls into the hole left by the infill collapsing.

Reply to
alan

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