andysworld!

I’ll set the scene, at the beginning of September (September 5th 2011) 

1. one of the power supplies on a computers workstation, went bang and failed – reported here on Andysworld!,
2. another power supply on another workstation, failed – OCZ power supply.
3. Humax Fox-SAT STB power supply failed – reported here on Andysworld!.
4. An electronic X10 switch failed which operates the backyard lamp.

Diagnosing the fault with the backyard lamp, I noticed and reported to Boot Ferrule Man, (a qualified Electrician) and my neighbour, the mains voltage coming into the house was 256v AC! (which I suspect had blown and damaged the electronic X10 switch).  Boot Ferrule Man stated that was far too high, and out of tolerence, but when I checked on the internet, I was confused by the reported tolerences of AC voltage supply in the UK. At this time, I had not associated this “possible fault” with the other items 1-3 above.

Saturday 8th October 2011, a neighbour in the shire, knocked on the door at 11.00am, asking if we had, had any damage the previous night (7th October 2011) at 9.00, because a few properties in the shire, had items which had stopped working, lightbulbs, Freeview STB, Washing Machines, Central heating pumps, Sky Boxes, television mast head amplifiers etc

We had not noticed any, issues that evening. they reported the fault to YEDL, later Saturday afternoon (3.15pm), a YEDL Engineer visited our house, and disconnected us, because they found the electrical impedance to the property was at 1.3 ohms, the maximum impedance allowable is 0.35 ohms, and stated that they had tested that day 280V AC, at a few properties, the fault lay in the common neutral to all the houses, and their was a fault outside of the property, possibly due to water ingress into the underground cabling.  I asked the YEDL engineers, what time did they think service would resume, and they stated, the Digging Team was scheduled to arrive at 6.15pm, and they could not do any work, until thy arrived, so they tidied their YEDL VANs! They gave me a time of 10.00pm! I noticed that the YEDL, are going through a re-branding to CE Electric UK. These were some of the labels on the VANs, although they still had YEDL uniforms!

So I decided to power-up the petrol generator for the fish house.

Coincidence you may think, because in April 2010, they were fixing a joint underground, see here.

The YEDL engineers arrived on site, to fix the fault, but had to wait for the “digging team” before they could start work, the digging team eventually arrived at approx 7.30pm, because I just come back from the Chinese with our dinner, to eat in the dark with our headtorches, and my NEW ZEBRALIGHT!, which of course I purchased from my friendly Boot Ferrule Man. ZEBRALIGHT! Review coming soon!

Our electricity was not re-connected and tested until approx 2.30am, so with hindsight, it was a good job, I connected the petrol generator for the fish house, and this is the longest runtime, I’ve had it running 11 hours@3000Watts.

New Impedance tested to house is 0.29 ohms.

A few photos of the event!

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