Power cut in the ST17 area

Darren

Well-Known Forumite
Sat here in the dark apparently it's the same in parts of Brocton supposed to be fixed with in one hour.
 

Darren

Well-Known Forumite
Funny enough i tried that from my phone and it would not recognize me postcode, from my phone but the power is back on now thank you.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Thankfully I haven't had a power cut on Wildwood part of ST17 (but did lose my internet connection earlier for a while....funnily enough it prompted me to find the candles and torches out in case of power cuts with this wind)
 

Lunar Scorpion

Anarchy in the UK
I'm a member of the power cut club now! =(

Well, not right now but a bit ago - for about half an hour about 10 minutes after I'd just got in...
 

Laurie61

Well-Known Forumite
I am expecting one shortly, western power are replacing old poles in the lane and I would doubt they can transfer the lines without turning everything off ? The longest outage we have had was one winter when snow, wrong sort, bought down cables and we were off for about a week and it was minus five at night.
 

henryscat

Well-Known Forumite
I'm a member of the power cut club now! =(

Well, not right now but a bit ago - for about half an hour about 10 minutes after I'd just got in...
Ours went three times last night. First time round tea had gone in the oven 30 seconds before it went. Pizza Hut profited out of that one as we were mega hungry.

According to Western Power website 5000 properties were knocked out in the power cut last night.
 

Maryland

Well-Known Forumite
Slightly obsessive it may be, but I've started making a note of date/time/duration of all our power cuts. One such within the last year seemed to have knocked out the control unit on my cooker and it took some persistence to get WPD to agree to pay a very modest amount of compensation, which as things turned out I didn't have to claim because the thing reset itself after I'd experimentally turned it off and on again.

In the process, however, I got quite cross with being given the runaround by WPD, whose stance was, roughly, all modern domestic appliances have to be compliant with EU standards covering resilience when exposed to power outages, we always follow correct procedures when conducting planned outages, which this was, so if your appliance was damaged it can't possibly be our fault - subtext, either you're making it up or your cooker was faulty already. Lazy and borderline offensive argument which riled me and caused the recollection of the very many outages I'd noticed in the last two to three years, none of which had been notified or explained. Made me wonder also how many other people find that an item of electronic equipment, even one as robust as a cooker, is malfunctioning after a power cut.

Eventually I'd got in touch with the chap who has responsibility for this area, who was a nice chap, and explained to him how and why their customers get annoyed when treated wth disdain. He was interested in the anecdotal evidence of the frequent little outages - which of course WPD has a full record of - and suggested that such occurrences might indicate some sort of underlying weakness in their local infrastructure, which should in due course trigger investigation on the part of WPD. Since that conversation, I do keep a record of power cuts. There have been three or four, including the one the other day. The latter, incidentally, was momentary in this neighbourhood yet still turned on a table lamp in my house and set off several nearby burglar alarms. Did not, however, reset my cooker clock, which was surprising. Funny stuff, this electric.
 

Lunar Scorpion

Anarchy in the UK
Ours went three times last night. First time round tea had gone in the oven 30 seconds before it went. Pizza Hut profited out of that one as we were mega hungry.

According to Western Power website 5000 properties were knocked out in the power cut last night.
It went off for about half an hour, although did come on for literally about a second during this time. Then after my last post it went off again shortly after 8pm. Luckily, in that time I'd found the number for WPD online so gave them a call - apparently a tree had fallen on a line, and I was assured it should be back on by 10pm, it was on by about 9pm I think. I'm screwed if there's a power cut - there is no gas supply so I wouldn't have been able to cook anything (I lie, I think I have a disposable BBQ in a cupboard somewhere!) and my main heating source is a storage heater, so if it's off overnight it affects my heating the next day.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
About fifteen years ago, I noticed that my tungsten bulbs were giving a very reduced output, quite orange. Most of my bulbs were CFLs by then, and so the illumination was still fairly good from them. I turned some more of them on, but they wouldn't start. I had thought that it was just the odd tungsten bulb at the end of its life, but the failure of the fluorescents to strike, made me wonder about the supply voltage, so I measured it. Instead of the expected 230V, I was getting about 130V. A look up and down the street showed that all the adjacent houses were also looking distinctly orange. I expected the supply to be cut quickly, as this is well below the allowable range. Just for the sake of it, I did ring the distribution supplier and was told that there were no problems in the area and a supply at that voltage was 'completely impossible' - over the next three hours, the voltage slowly dropped down to 90V, when the supply was finally cut. I unplugged my fridge, as an attempt to start the motor at that sort of voltage would probably result in a stall and an overheated motor. I tried to persuade the people in the neighbourhood that they should do the same, but was met with uncomprehending incredulity. I discovered the next day that the cable under the footpath alongside the Common had failed in a most spectacular way.
 

Maryland

Well-Known Forumite
There have been fatalities from the use of disposable BBQs in unventilated spaces giving rise to dangerous levels of Carbon Monoxide..
Oh blimey yes. Don't ever use a disposable barbie indoors, and always put them outside and well away when they've finished, because they give off carbon monoxide fumes for several hours. A family in a tent in Machynlleth, last summer I think it was, kept their burned-out barbie inside the tent when they turned in, because it was a cold night, and one of them died. Awful.
 

Kickstart

Well-Known Forumite
Hi

Quite a few years ago I got home from work and the first house on the street on the left had slightly dim lights and as I drove down the street the houses on the left got dimmer. Into our house and I could just about get a very dim glow from a single bulb. Next door neighbour had full power!

All the best

Keith
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Quite a few years ago I got home from work and the first house on the street on the left had slightly dim lights and as I drove down the street the houses on the left got dimmer. Into our house and I could just about get a very dim glow from a single bulb. Next door neighbour had full power!
You could well be on a different phase to the house next-door. You can sometimes see this when there is a single phase fault and the other two phases stay on.
 

Kickstart

Well-Known Forumite
Hi

Possibly, but not sure that was the cause here as I thought with that they normally alternated between each of the 3 phases for houses. Every house on one side of the road had progressively dimmer lights, while our neighbour and onwards had full power without any sign of the dim lights.

All the best

Keith
 

Laurie61

Well-Known Forumite
Received notification of power going off today from Western Power. 10th Nov between 9 am and 4pm, will have to check the geny has enough fuel.
 
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