High Domestic Voltage Worry.

[conny]

Friend of mine got a new computer today and when he plugged it in it blew up, quite literally! He then plugged in his lap top and that too blew up though it has been working ok during the week. (He moved into this property last weekend).
On checking his supply voltage it was reading steady at 306v. I double checked a number of outlets and received the same readings throughout the property. Coming back home and my supply is steady at 251v (inside the permitted parameters). Both systems are TT though the high voltage one is in Norfolk and ours is in Suffolk. I'm suspecting the pole mounted transformer at my friends is at fault and have advised he contacts the DNO now as a matter of urgency.
Has anyone got any views on this please?

 

[westie101]

Yes absolutely and tonight. No delay, no wait until morning!

They probably won't fix it tonight but will make it safe.

 

[conny]

Thanks Westie. Will let you know how things turn out.
Will he be able to claim some form of damages from the DNO for his equipment that has been destroyed?

 

[westie101]

Depends on what caused it and the attitude of the DNO. There is no automatic entitlement in this case

(until he reports it they don't know there is a problem)

 

[conny]

DNO guy turned up a short while ago, had a look and has now said he is having to call out an emergency crew to attend tonight.

 

[Scoby_Beasley]

This will be interesting! I'd be worried about the 251v (usually around 241 ish here). Never heard of a 300+ before. I'd expect the supplier (DNO) to accept a duty of care over their supply and, within reason, compensate for broken voltage sensitive equipment.

 

[ricicle]

My money's on a neutral/earth link fault at the sub.....

 

[Lectrician]

Assuming its a three phase TX.....

 

[ricicle]

If it's a single phase tx then there are some serious winding faults going on there !

 

[Guitarguy]

The p1keys may have been at work removing the lv neutral/earthing...

 

[NewOrder]

The PC hopefully it will just need a new PSU, modern PSUs are very good at protecting the rest of the components. Again hopefully the laptop just needs a new transformer.

 

[conny]

Well the emergency crew turned up, checked the supply and then went outside for a while, came back in, tested it again and declared everything was ok and there was no problem. Hmmm. They didn't tell him if they had repaired/replaced anything when they were outside so he is at a loss as to what the problem may have been. Haven't had chance to get back and check it myself yet but will be visiting him next week so will check it again.
Thanks for all your replies and if I manage to find out what it was I will let you know.

 

[Guitarguy]

Maybe it was caused by the hv network feeding the t/x being abnormally fed? Networks in parallel etc? These sort of things have caused me and my colleagues a fair amount of head scratching before we Sussed it out.