There was an item on the Jeremy Vine show on R2 last week about people who'd been injured by exploding pavements! I never got to hear the segment in the end and have been wondering ever since what on earth it was all about. Can anyone satiate my curiosity?
cheers, cd.
I didn't hear it, but I imagine it was something to do with gas buildup and subsequent explosion in underground service tunnels. That happened near us a few years ago, it blew a manhole cover from the road surface several feet into the air.
Jeremy Vine is the Daily Mail of Radio 2. Take what he says with a pinch of salt.
The story is electricity cables shorting out under the pavement. As these are large distribution cables, they have rather a large fault current, so when the insulation finally lets go, they cause a large amount of energy to be released, and this can cause paving slabs to be pushed up. Explosions is maybe too strong a word for them, they do go with a bang, but more like an hand grenade going off when covered with 2 foot of soil, rather than a kilo of C4 in a rubbish bin.
The BBC site has a number of videos of pavements affected - some videos too.
It's been covered frequently on BBC TV London news. Including footage of it actually happening. It's an electricity supply cable failing. You get a small(ish) explosion with lots of flames and smoke. It's always an electricity bod that's interviewed about it - not gas. Seems the very wet weather earlier this year made have made things worse.
Rather unfair comparing JV with that awful rag. Vine's always impressed me with his fearless and impartial approach to any subject, taboo or not. Cheers for the info, btw.
Could well be a fuse box ("link box") or electric cable fault - you can get some pretty big bangs off those.
This once happened outside my house just as I was stood over the short circuit. The were the three distinct bangs and the feeling of a small earthquake - I have felt two earthquakes at this house (1). The tarmac under my feet became hot and soft. YEDL turned up (the substation is in my back garden) and I pointed out to them what had happened. It was the 11kV incoming supply that had failed and true to form a gang turned up at 11pm to dig the road up. They were nearly as noisy as the 11kV diesel generator they put just my bedroom window:-)
(1) The first earthquake had it's epicentre in Manchester. That emptied a bookshelf in the study. The second earthquake had the epicenter in Market Rasen and all the banister rails popped out of their joints.
Could have been. The TV News reported it to be gas, but then, what would they know?
Around here it is generally badly maintained electricity and gas mains, the latter leaking into a small void under the footway over time and an electrical fault igniting it if the gas air mixture is about right. I did not hear it either but there have been rumblings for some time now that the infrastructure is seldom checked and all the investment is being up on supplies of gas to customers, while the UK power Networks who now mostly do the electricity, have seemingly just not bothered in the waythe regional companies used to, just waiting for the power to go of then reacting to it.
All from memory. a person round here was badly burned by this about six months back, mainly on the legs. Brian
Well one happened in Tolworth last year and it was both gas and Electicity that caused it. It was quite a big hole and a person got burned. They said that just before a lady with children had just been standing there and it could have been far worse. Usual indignation about lack of maintanaince etc. Brian
I have no problem with his methods, only his voice which drones rather a lot in a whiney way. I know he cannot help that but it does jar after a while. Brian
I think you need to move to a nice solid rock some place. Brian
My dad knew of one in the 50's or 60's where a link box with 3 300A fuses went "wumfa" about 5 seconds after a man had stepped over it. Left a scorch mark up the side of the building it was next to.
Probably needed a new pair of trousers too.
A link box over the road from me blew up a few years ago setting the neighbour's hedge alight.
So it's not a new problem.
But if you look at the state of some of the cables when they dig holes in the road (1960's paper/lead stock) it is hardly surprising.
The London Electricity Board's solution in the 50's or 60's was "the solid system". They took out all the 300A low voltage fuses in the street link boxes and replaced with copper bars.
The idea was the cable would blow the fault clear and still be fed from both ends so likely noone, except maybe a house or two would lose power.
Genius...
On 20/07/2014 11:42, Tim Watts wrote: ...
In the Electricity Museum is a section of Brighton's distribution system from the 1880s - bus bars buried in pitch filled oak troughs. That was still part of the distribution system until it was dug up the late 1960s.
Wow.
That museum - is it at Christchurch?
And do they have any "Free Parking" signs?
Originally, it was in Tonbridge and run by Seeboard, which was when I was involved in it. It was handed over to this place after the privatisation of the electricity supply industry:
The Christchurch one closed about two years ago, building not suitable for disabled access and too expensive to upgrade was given as the reason. So because some could not visit now nobody can.
G.Harman
G.Harman
It's the way the socialist likes it...
Thank you Colin -
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