Those in Sheffield without any gas

[Tim+]

And if they can’t access your meter they dig up your pavement and physically cut your supply pipe so that they can restore the supply to your neighbours.

Tim

[Andrew]

Or in my case in 1985, when my air-hostess neighbour was somewhere over the atlantic, BG dug up the pavement in front of her house (terrace of 5) and cut and clamped the gas pipe and my gas supply immediately failed.

Entire block of 5 houses had been built 6 feet furthur down the slight slope because the site foreman decided that the house at the upper end of the terrace needed more garden. Gas installers laid the supply to each house strictly according to the plans.

[ARW]

Sheffield does it well

[NY]

My parents and their neighbours lost their gas supply for about 10 days when a water main burst and rupture the gas main alongside it, flooding the gas main with water. The "gas board" responded very promptly and brought in lots of people from the surrounding area to fix the rupture gas pipe, evacuate the water from the main and get gas restored, but with probably 50 houses affected, it took a long time to get everyone going. They *gave* (didn't want it back) my parents a couple of electric heaters and a small hob/oven, and arranged a rebate on their electricity bill for the less efficient form of heating. At least their sub-station withstood the extra electricity usage... As you say, with gas the turning on process is long and tedious, in case people have left any gas appliances turned on during the gas outage.

When there was a major power cut (JCB through underground HV cable) to the town where I used to work, supply to our office block was restored within a few minutes. Brilliant! The loud unfamiliar throbbing of an engine showed that site facilities had cranked up the standby diesel generator. A few minutes later the lights went dim and there was a tremendous explosion and a huge fireball. The generator had overheated, igniting the diesel fuel, because it was specced for the days when most of the computers were a few big mainframes; it had never been upgraded to account for the "modern" trend towards one PC on each person's desk, plus many development servers etc. I think it was also suspected that the engine oil was low/nonexistent so the engine itself may have seized. After that, there was no power for about 6 hours, so very little work could be done. Somehow the canteen managed to put on a decent (but cold) lunch for everyone.

[Andrew]

Have they got bored with cutting down all the wonderful trees that Sheffield has (had) ?.

[ARW]

I think so.

[ARW]

When Lou's boiler was condemned by the council (or their Gas safe subcontractors) the council made sure the electric fire in the lounge worked (it didn't as I had changed the fused spur for a socket - so they put a plug on it), gave her a fan heater they did not want back and then went to check her immersion heater worked.

The immersion was not wired in from the DP switch in the airing cupboard to the immersion. The council electrician had no heat resistant flex on the van and he phoned me to ask if I could do it when I got home from work as he was finishing work in 10 minutes:-)

[John J]

Not having a flex from switch to immersion would avoid unexpected consumption/bills. I like it!

[ARW]

And I like to have a bath with Lou - and we both like it hot:-)

[John J]

Hard boiled or scalded nuts anyone? :-(