Loss Of Supply - (PIC)

Lectrician · 28 May 2015

Called out to customer who had lost all power. They had called the DNO out, who confirmed all ok on their side.

I turn up, follow tails from cutout, oddly not going to the adjacent consumer unit. They vanished up with the boxed in soil pipe. Went upstairs, found a 45amp isolator.

Yep, it had been turned off. No idea why it was there. Odd location for it, and really no need.

It's gone now!

JohnW2 · 28 May 2015

Lectrician said:
I turn up, follow tails from cutout, oddly not going to the adjacent consumer unit. They vanished up with the boxed in soil pipe. Went upstairs, found a 45amp isolator. ... Yep, it had been turned off. No idea why it was there. Odd location for it, and really no need. ... It's gone now!

Do I take it that you mean the tails from the meter (rather than cutout)? How long are these tails (i.e. are they OK without a fuse)?

Kind Regards, John

ban-all-sheds · 28 May 2015

Lectrician said:
customer who had lost all power ... it had been turned off.

So the customer himself, or someone legitimately in the property, flicked a big switch and all the power went off.

And their reaction was to call the DNO?

ricicle · 28 May 2015

JohnW2 · 28 May 2015

ban-all-sheds said:
So the customer himself, or someone legitimately in the property, flicked a big switch and all the power went off. And their reaction was to call the DNO?

One suspects that the person who called the DNO was probably different from the person who (deliberately or accidentally) 'flicked the switch'.

Kind Regards, John

Jackrae · 28 May 2015

Sounds like a case of some old buddy afraid of electricity "leaking out" of sockets during the night and requested an isolation switch be fitted so's they could turn it all off once they went to bed.

JohnW2 · 28 May 2015

Jackrae said:
Sounds like a case of some old buddy afraid of electricity "leaking out" of sockets during the night and requested an isolation switch be fitted so's they could turn it all off once they went to bed.

Maybe - although one assumes that there is somewhere a CU with a main switch which would fulfil such a purpose. In any event, that still leaves us with the fact that a 45A switch was chosen for that 'isolator' (it's hard to believe that any competent electrician would have installed that) and, as I've mentioned, possibly an issue over the length of 'unprotected' meter tails.

Kind Regards, John

ban-all-sheds · 28 May 2015

JohnW2 said:
One suspects that the person who called the DNO was probably different from the person who (deliberately or accidentally) 'flicked the switch'.

Why would someone flick the switch, and either fail to notice everything in the house going off, or notice but decide to do nothing about it?

I hope the DNO bill them for the waste of time - WTF should "I" have to pay for something like that?

JohnW2 · 28 May 2015

ban-all-sheds said:
JohnW2 said:

One suspects that the person who called the DNO was probably different from the person who (deliberately or accidentally) 'flicked the switch'.

Click to expand...

Why would someone flick the switch, and either fail to notice everything in the house going off, or notice but decide to do nothing about it?

The latter certainly sounds most unlikely. As for the former, it's far from impossible that one could (deliberately or accidentally) 'flick the switch', during daylight hours, without being aware that the house had become without power - and, of course, if the switch had been 'knocked off' accidentally, it's possible that no-one would be aware that it had happened. Whatever, little is to be gained by our speculating, unless one is in a search for someone to moan about.

Kind Regard, John

plugwash · 28 May 2015

ban-all-sheds said:
Why would someone flick the switch, and either fail to notice everything in the house going off

I'm sure most of us would quickly notice if the power went down in our house while we were there even during the daytime.However having lots of "always on" electrical appliances that change in obvious ways (and sometimes even make noise) when they lose power is a relatively new thing and i'm sure there are lots of old people who haven't caught up with modern trends and could easilly have a loss of power go unnoticed for hours if it's daytime and they aren't doing something that requires electricity. The picture also looks to me like the switch is on top of a tall cupboard which would make it easy to switch it accidentally during cleaning, possiblly without even being aware of it's existance.

ban-all-sheds · 28 May 2015

If "my" bills go up as a result of that kind of stupidity then "I" am perfectly entitled to moan about the stupid person(s) responsible.

People should THINK, it's essential. When they don't, and instead do something stupid, not only do they deserve criticism, society requires that they be criticised.

securespark · 28 May 2015

Think you're being a bit hard on the customer.

Given the 20, it's forgivable they perhaps did not link the switch and its function. Maybe (like me) being upstairs, they thought it would be a shower switch or such-like.

The other possibility is that it could have been switched off accidentally by being knocked.

I have had that a few times before.

If there's a sunny day with very little being used in the way of appliances, it could well go unnoticed, then the connection would not be made between the switch-off (assuming it was not accidental) and noticing the loss of supply.

JohnW2 · 28 May 2015

securespark said:
Think you're being a bit hard on the customer. ... Given the 20, it's forgivable ...

I agree with everything you say - indeed, both plugwash and myself have already said much the same.

... but what's this "20" you refer to??

Kind Regards, John

Chri5 · 28 May 2015

20 is an old CB radio slang.

The impressive thing with that switch is getting 4 cables terminated in it.

davelx · 28 May 2015

JohnW2 said:
securespark said:

Think you're being a bit hard on the customer. ... Given the 20, it's forgivable ...

Click to expand...

I agree with everything you say - indeed, both plugwash and myself have already said much the same.

... but what's this "20" you refer to??

Kind Regards, John

Here you go...

http://www.citizens-band-radio.co.uk/10codes.htm

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Loss Of Supply - (PIC)

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