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Power cut questions

Power is off at the moment whilst they fix a problem next door. I'm using a laptop and mobile data and hoping the power comes back on in the 2 hours they claimed.

(1) How much of a street would they have to turn off? Is there more granularity than the local sub-station?

(2) Backup generators have been more or less done to death, and automatic switching between mains and backup is expensive. However running in a "local only" ring main doesn't look that complicated (if you do it at the right time - not ripping apart the fitted kitchen to retrofit). Anything complex in Part P? It would be nice if you could get sockets of a distinctive different colour (e.g. green) to clearly mark the local only sockets.

I assume you could get by with green socket power to combi boiler, fridge, freezer. Bonus for Internet Router and LAN switch. and DECT base stations.

Re-plugging all the IT kit could be a pain, but laptops are pretty straightforward for a couple of hours.

Power is off in the middle of an unusually warm day so I miss the chance to light the wood burner and sit there with a smug glow knowing that I can warm myself and cook meals whilst all about me despair. Then again it is a bit like wishing for a nuclear war so you can test out your bunker.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David
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I think by the time you had looked at the cost of "local only" ring main parts you might as well just fit a manual changeover switch. That gives you all your lights and the useful little things you might have forgotten, like door bells, phones, mast head amplifiers and wifi extenders.

You'd need the discipline to make sure you didn't run an immersion, washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer, or heater off you generator (unless it is a big one).

Coloured sockets are readily available from electrical wholesalers though.

Reply to
newshound

Its very odd for two adjacent properties to be off, In this road when they had to do a fixe it was every third house as the phases are wired that way, ie, if I had an old fashioned mains intercom, only several doors down could also hear it not next door!

However if its a sub station then it would be a whole lot of all phases as I doubt anyone would want live mains phases about while trying to find a problem. The last time it went of big time around here was when they moved the street lighe in from the curb and went straight through the cable bang, I was out at the time. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

It depends what is at fault. This house and its two neighbours were built in 1911 ( the rest of the road being 1930s) and until three years ago were fed from a spur cable off the main road feeder. The a builder, in trying to remove a tree shorted the cable and it took 4 days to replace it. Each house had its own 60kVA genny installed at about 1am!.

Reply to
charles

They may be able to take down just one phase...

I would have thought a manual changeover would be less hassle than dedicated circuits.

(although the complexity can vary a bit with your earthing system)

Probably... (note previous discussions about

We have a scheduled cut for tomorrow, so going to be in a similar state. Probably not cold enough to light the fire, but will see how it goes. I have a small portable gas hob that will run on a propane bottle for drinks etc, but it sounds like a good excuse for lunch at the pub.

Reply to
John Rumm

I hope it's within walking distance ;-)

Reply to
charles

If it's only you and your neighbour you're not looped into them are you?

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If you wanted to be less obvious you could uise white sockets with different coloured rockers for identification - or a little coloured dot sticker on each socket or switch to identify the circuit.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

They possibly turned off no power. You might take your power from your neighbours cut out.

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shows two setups like that under the TN-S setup.

Now yesterday most of Aukley had it's power cut for a day whilst some trees were felled. 9am to 4pm.

First job of the day was to set up a big 3 phase genny for the local pub ready for the power going off. You knew the power had been cut when the burglar alarms went off:-) I sent the apprentice around posting business cards through the letter boxes of the ones that were sounding.

Reply to
ARW

Most people seem to think that's expected, clearly it proves their alarm has a working battery!

Reply to
Andy Burns

How else woul they workers get their lunch? Sounds like when I installed a new CU - 30+ years ago. I asked to have the power cut off when I did it. I told the bloke from SEEboard, if you come back and reconnect me in a couple of hours I can then put the kettle on. He did and I did.

Reply to
charles

Its ok, the car is not electric ;-)

Reply to
John Rumm

And I boxed the genny in with the landlords car to keep the pikeys from stealing it. Probably about £25K of kit sat on the carpark with a tow hook at the front.

Reply to
ARW

Interesting stuff. The power runs down one side of the road (opposite side to us) and each pair of semis has a feed off this.

Next door is the next pair of semis. They had both been off since last night.

There is some kind of fuse box box (mini sub station) under the road and they switched the whole road off whilst they repaired a dodgy joint from (they think) the 1970s.

All back on again within 2 hours.

The interesting and slightly brain twisting thing is that apparently if you are off for more than 12 hours then you have to have a replacement supply from a stand alone generator. So the pair of semis were off over night. This morning the leccy people turned up mob handed with diggers and a generator trailer.

First thing they did was connect the genny up to the people without power. Once that was running (by about 10:00) they turned everyone else off and fixed the problem by around 12:00 and we were all back on within 2 hours of the switch off. So in real terms bringing and running the genny contributed the best part of f*ck all apart from 2 houses having power for

2 hours whilst the rest of the street was off. No doubt it helped them meet their targets, though.

Anyway, learned some stuff :-)

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

Top posting for Brians news reader

Actually its far more common to have two properties next to each other on the same phase than it is the have 3 properties next to each other on different phases.

It usually done in pairs of houses.

So houses 1 and 2 are > Its very odd for two adjacent properties to be off, In this road when they

Reply to
ARW

3 and 4 are on phase 2:-)
Reply to
ARW

ARW submitted this idea :

Especially so, if the houses are a pair of semi's.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

And even then it's 50 - 50 as to which two semis!

Cut outs under the stairs/cellar/wall etc where they are next to each other internally and it's usually a pair of semis on the same phase.

With cut outs on the external wall then it's the nearest semi that you are NOT attached to.

So no 1 gets it own phase, but no 3 and no 5 which are separate buildings are on the same phase. One shared cable down the pathway between them.

Reply to
ARW

Any idea why, in a road with c. 150 Victorian terraced houses, they ended up with about 5 of us with power on when all the rest were without last time there was a local power cut? (I've never had the chutzpah to ask neighbours if I could test which phase they're on: this _is_ London.)

Reply to
Robin

God knows what we have here? Our house is one of a pair of semis, but power comes in at opposite ends, so unlikely to be shared. However all the semis were built a year later than the detached bungalows that neighbour our other side.

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

In article , Brian Gaff writes

In our close all the houses except one are on the same phase.

Reply to
bert

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