Sorry to be a pain. I have just received a letter from Western Power Distribution telling me they are cutting our electric supply for essential works ( actually the replacement of an old 2 phase incoming overhead mains cable which I have been told is " dangerous" - but its been there sine the
1950's and hasn't blown up yet!
I have no problem with this but it says the power will be cut off between 6 am ( SIX AM) and 8am ( EIGHT AM). Is this a bit early or is it me?
Is this reasonable? It seems a bit early in the morning to me and more so since we both go to work at 7 am and this is right in the middle of breakfast and shower time etc. I have no other power supply to the house. No mains gas to village. Nothing. I am totally reliant on electric for cooking and hot water etc.
feel lucky that you have warning, so you can at least have a tank of hot water ready and waiting..and think that if some tree goes down in next winters gales and takes out that 2 phase overhead, you will be down, with no warning, for a heck of a lot longer than 2 hours.
Nothing wrong with a little camper stove to make a cup of coffee, and cornflakes instead of bacon and eggs for one day, is hardly a lifetime sentence to privation.
I have to say the preponderance of posts on the Internet of the 'I want million pounds compensation for minor inconvenience that is actually really nothing at all' since Nu Laber has been in power seems to me to be part and parcel of the propagation of the myth that the only Worthwhile Things that are done, are done by Authorities, and they have a Duty to Do Them At No Cost And No Inconvenience. Except a plethora of stealth taxes that now circulates in excess of 50% of GDP through the government coffers.
If I received such a letter, I would be stoking up the Aga, get the immersion heater on and the camp stove out ready to ply the linesmen with scalding hot coffee and croissants before weeping on their necks with gratitude that they were prepared to get up at such a god forsaken hour and do the work in only two hours, and get rid of yet another stretch of ugly, aging, unreliable and dangerous overhead mains.
Prior to Thatcher, such a job would have taken a couple of days, if it were done at all, with about 30 surly union men turning up on double time, and spending the day gloomily drinking tea, whilst staring at the rain outside from the windows of a decrepit National Grid van.
And then to make sure of continued employment, it would have a deliberate mistake in it. And go wrong on a regular basis.
FOR ONCE? I get up at 5.00 am to see my family out by 7.00 am. Where am I supposed to put them between 7.00 am and 8.00 am ? I go to bed at
9.00 pm to do this. I am supposed to go at 8.00 pm now am I?
Kids cant go to school, it doesnt open before 8.30. My husband could go to work and sit outside in his van waiting for the place to open I suppose. But even in his job they dont start at six am because , as he says, people are not up and do not thankyou for calling so early to switch off their water.
Gettin up an hour earlier for me means getting up at four am. I suppose you think I shouldnt need to even go to bed?
When I go to work I do a hard day 12 hour shifts and I am supposed to get up at four, see to my family before six and go out at seven for seven thirty and then work 12 hours?
So they can piss off somewhere else at eight am to someone else?
I draw the short straw because no one lese would have it did I?
Its like when the electric board wanted to change the meter. They said they wanted me to wait in all day from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm so I took a day off work. It was winter and went fdark at four pm. I waited all day and they didnt turn up. A few weeks later they did the same again. Then someone told me they were not allowed to shut off electric once it went dark. They turned up on spec a few weeks later, I was not home. I then got a third letter and ignored it. They havent bothered me since.
I suppose the reasoning is that it does not involve night work and it's already daylight at that time, but before major industrial and commercial loads start up.
Two hours, and with notice, almost certainly.
It seems a bit early in the morning to me and more so
Do you not have stored hot water on E7? Or just get up early that day? Or even a hotel for the night - but WPD are unlikely to pay.
I dont have an aga. I dont have a camping stove. ( I dont go camping - in fact I dont go on holiday and I have just realised its school holiday week, so nowhere to park kids.). This isnt the mains lines, its the line to my house - all of fifty foot of it from the pole to the chimney. I was told when the bloke called it was low priority and it would be two or three years before they got round to me ( three weeks ago)
Yes I have had my overhead cables down in gales - for three or four days sometimes. We have candles and my husband used his blow torch to boil water. I dont mind emergencies. I do mind over something that aint broke.
Look, get some proportion. You are behaving as though your house will be uninhabitable because the power is off, it won't be. If your kids cannot entertain themselves or be entertained for one hour without the tv, radio, computer (assuming no laptops) etc then something is seriously wrong. At the very least they can play games on their phones.
Just make sure stuff is turned off and unplugged before you go to bed. Last power cut we had we lost a computer. Power company refused compensation despite it being just fine before the power went off.
At a guess, an old PBJ (polybutyl jute) lead in cable which does have a tendency to crack and deteriorate close to the ends.
I am surprised that you come here to ask questions you should be asking of WPD. Have you actually asked them if the times are correct? Have you asked why they have chosen to do the work at this time? Have you tried to negotiate with them over the timing.
For planned work, no; it's obviously being done to suit *their* methods of working, although I'd guess that they will be planning to use contractors to do the work, probably paid on a piece work basis, so they'll try to get as many jobs in as possible.
Like I said, you should try actually talking to WPD before you come bleating here. They might just agree to do the work later in the day, but you'll almost certainly need to give them access to the meter position and main fuse.
I was told they would not need access to the house and there is nothing on the letter to suggest they do. If they think they will be getting in, I am stropping now and they wont!
I'll go out and leave them to it for the two hours. I think to arrive at six am and work until eight am is a bit thick.
If I was still working at home I would be less than happy about having the power off between 10 and 12. One person's best time is another's worst.
Given that they will quite possibly want to do an earth/polarity check on one of your sockets afterwards ISTM that they have chosen a time that does not involve you having to stay home from work. You may not be grateful, but I don't think you've got anything to complain about.
Ring them to check - I suspect it's supposed to read 8am to 6pm - it probably won't need to be off for anywhere near that length of time, but in most cases we (speaking as someone who works for a REC) overestimate the amount of time it'll take just in case things go pear-shaped.
RECs have a legal responsibility to maintain their network, and this is exactly what they're doing.
As per the other reply about checking polarity, they may need access to check, so your strop might effectively mean you being left off supply until such time as you decide you're cold and hungry enough without electricity to allow them in.
"Colin Wilson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net...
They have not asked for access. They have not suggested they need it. How can I be held responsible for not being there because they want to cuit off my supply in the middle of breakfast? We have to eat. That means we have to go out now.
If they require access I think they need to state it.
If they don't tell me they want access and they make us go out to get breakfast by turning off the supply at 6.00 am , and then leave me without electric I wonder if they will like the publicity they will get when I tell the press and the TV? There is a reporter locally who would oblige me I know.
================================== They don't appear to inconvenience you very often if the cable they're replacing is 50 years old. You might have more grounds for complaint if they failed to replace the cable and it failed unexpectedly.
Maintenance is a necessary part of your contract and it's for your own good.
Can I ask, if it were you would you like them doing this at 6.00 am in the morning? I think they are piss taking with me because no builder or landlord would let them on site anywhere else ( like the council wont let them do their cottages down the road)
I might not have considered 6.30 am so bad. 7.00 am better but 6.00 am is before even the building sites start work! You cant even sound a horn at
6.00 am , yet they want to work on lines to my house?
I know the local council do not put their maintencance workers on site anywhere before 7.30 am because they cannot inconvenience tenents - so why do I have to have it at 6.00 am?
As I said, they have sent a letter telling me they will turn off the supply at 6.00 am. They cannot reasonably expect me to stay in with no power. If they do exect me to do so then they need to say so. I take it since they have not, I do not have to be there.
================================== Personally, if I found the timing so very inconvenient I would ask them to offer an alternative and I'm sure that they would oblige. People suffer minor inconveniences like this every day and take it in their stride. The plain fact is that you've been given a clearly defined window for the work and that's a lot more than most people get. Usually it's a case of 'morning' or 'afternoon' with no clear statement of when morning and afternoon begin and end.
I'm sure that the letter you received has a contact number, so why not contact them and explain your position? They will be much more helpful than anybody here can be in the circumstances.
Please get this in perspective. If there's an unforseen problem with an early start you have a high degree of assurance that it will be resolved that day. Provide them with drinks - when 50 homes lose their supply at
05:00 on Christmas Day the linesmen do remember where they know they will get a warm and a drink when deciding who should be reconnected first. Last year my wife said "I'd like to get rid of the pole in the garden" Response "you try it'll cost". After some negotiations it was agreed that the o/head service was too small and if I dug a 50m trench they would erect a new pole to cross a private road, remove the old pole and lay an underground service" The cost to me £0.00 + tea+biscuits. It took them around 5hrs and we had 2 cable jointing teams, 1overhead team and the pole erecting lorry.
Oh dear. Get a life. "Publicity" because your power is going off for a few hours? Consider yourself lucky you're getting ANY notice. You go on about it like they're going to cut off the oxygen supply to the house, not the power. As you have notice you can plan for this, and make sure you have stored hot water, and breakfast you can prepare without electricity.
Wouldn't cause me any problems, however I'm prepared for power outages. Things like a small gas camping stove and torches don't cost much and are ideal for such occasions.
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