Another mains supply question.

If the pitch is leaking from the new cutout, that needs sorting out as something is causing overheating.

If you get liquid come out after replacement it's still overheating.

Sounds a bit odd, but then Pitch seldom becomes solid, but to be as runny as that does seem a trifle odd. I seem to recall an item in the Guinness book of records about the slowest liquid being pitch that has one drip per several years. Brian

So this is on the supply side of the meter, and has to be in your property, yet no breakers or cut outs pop. In that case there has to be a very bad fault, and it would be warm I'd imagine. More likely is that whatever is leaking is something else. Brian

Well is it hot at all suspect Dave could ascertain that?.

If not UK power notworks ought be called..

I think a suitable picture might yield more comments.

A picture of a her next to the cut-out might serve you even better :)

I phoned UK Power yesterday. Gave them numbers to contact me to be sure I was in when their chap called.

And he came with no warning at about 17.30.

He burbled on about there being oil in the incoming cable, and it sloped down to my cutout. Wish I had a clue what he was talking about - I've not really taken an interest in anything their side of the cutout ;-) And the original cutout likely pitch filled. But what was on the earth strap looked more like oil to me.

No signs or smells of burning.

He opened up the cutout. No pitch used these days - seemed to be layers of very thick tape. He pronounced everything fine. Also, seemed quite pleased I was interested. But with the light from his head torch, didn't really get a chance to look inside.

Very impressive service from UK Power.

There was oil coming out of a redundant supply cable at a job I was on last month.

Some older lead sheathed service cables had oil impregnated brown paper insulation, it is remotely possible that this is the source of the oil coating on the earth strap.

Isn’t there some dispute about glass being a liquid?

I left a house brick on top of an old lightbulb for 5 years and it didn’t distort at all.

Tim

Brian D snipped-for-privacy@lycos.co.uk> wrote:

I think the rate of flow is so slow that you wouldn't see any difference over a period as short as five years.

I've heard it said, though never seen it myself, that very old glass window panes (eg the small 6x4" leaded-lights of Georgian windows) have been found to be thicker at the bottom than the top, as the glass has flowed over the centuries, but I don't know what the difference in thickness is.

We have a holiday home in the Yorkshire Dales which was probably built in the early 1800s and which has wooden horizontally-sliding-sash windows with very small panes. Given that the frames are rotting badly and will need to be replaced with something that satisfies the planning department of the National Park (*), I might be able to extract a pane if I carefully dig out the putty, and measure the top and bottom thickness of the glass - which I

(*) Whether that turns out to be wooden windows with individual panes of glass, or double-glazed uPVC frames and windows with a single pane and internal dividers to simulate the individual panes.

Old windows are made like this. Before float glass had been invented glass was made in large disks (hence the “bullseye” pieces used in some decorative windows) and it tapered from centre to the edge. Anyone making a window with this glass would always put the thicker edge to the bottom.

This has been misinterpreted as “flow”.

Tim

I've heard it said, the difference in thickness isn't because the glass has flowed, but because glass sheets were made from flattened-out hand-blown bubbles

Until float glass was invented, glass had to be blown - which meant its thickness would be quite variable anyway - which is why old glass shows such distortion compared to modern float glass.

I think I read that there was no truth in glass being a thick liquid.

It will be a paper/oil insulated cable, lead sheathed, which need to have the ends sealed with pitch. Like a hose filled with water, if your end of the cable is lower down than the other end, the oil can eventually leak out.

Thanks, Harry. Difficult to tell what the cable its - it certainly doesn't look like the lead water main. Looks more like a fabric outer with some sort of sealer over that. The end looks like it is taped up.

Sounds like PILC - as Harry suggested - with hessian and tar wrapping. The wrapping is taken off to make the connection (and to get to the lead if earth is provided) then tape wrapped round.