Power supply into house

[deeppurplemk2]

Hi All
This is my first post so please be gentle. I have a house which is being refurbished and we've discovered that the electric supply actually enters our house from our neighbours house. The supply enters their house, from the road, and splits into their supply and ours. There are 2 boxes. Their supply comes from 1 box and ours comes from the other.
I find this really strange that we don't have a direct supply.
Does anyone on the forum have any experience of such a set up and have any information/advice that they could give me. I'd really like to have our own direct supply. Our supply comes from Scottish Power.
Thanks
Alan

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[Synapse]

The supply to my house is actually split from the neighbouring house and continues on to three other houses including mine. The suppliers issued a letter in January 2006 some time saying it was "urgent work", they still haven't done anything about it.

Just saying there are worse things than sharing a supply with a neighbouring house , try sharing it with 3 others.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Mine is the same - in this case the supply enters my house then loops to my neighbour's.

It's a TN-S supply, so I'm pretty sure that if I wanted to I could remove his main earth.....

 

[Roo]

I'd really like to have our own direct supply. Our supply comes from Scottish Power.
Thanks
Alan

Whats wrong with it?

How would it benefit you by having what you call a direct supply?

 

[RF Lighting]

I see loads of houses like this.

Really it is nothing to worry about.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Until a careless or vindictive neighbour leaves you with no earth....

 

[Roo]

If your worried about your neighbour tampering why not fit your own earth?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I guess you could DIY a conversion to TT.

I wasn't serious about the worry.

But the risk is there with a TN-S supply.

 

[deeppurplemk2]

Thanks for all the replies.
I didn't realise that this was a fairly common situation. My main issue with it is if there was a problem with the box in my neighbours house and they are away a lot. I spoke to Scottish Power about what would happen in this situation and they said that they couldn't answer that question. This made me even more worried.
Scottish Power visited the site yesterday, spoke to our builder, and they've agreed to give me a direct supply if we dig the channel through the front garden.
Thanks again.