Power cuts

[Mark]

You realise how reliant we are on electricity when it goes off! Which Brockman has just reminded me of!

We've had quite a few power cuts since moving into our new house, the last one apparently due to a substation fault, another due to lightening hitting the overhead wires which supply the house (a slightly unsual arrangement!), and recently the washing machine of all things tripped our circuit breakers!

The latest one came at an inopportune time, when I was upgrading to a bigger fish tank - something you don't do every day! Fish in a bucket waiting to go into the bigger tank, but, no hot water, no kettle to boil hot water, boiler doesn't work as there's no electricity, no filter etc etc.

At least these days you've still got your mobile to ring up the electricity board to complain!

[MrJan]

I find that not living in the North is quite a good solution :D

[GridGirl]

We haven't had a power cut for ages but I think we may have a power or lighting issue in our house. The lights all seem to flicker when you turn anything on. I didn't notice it in the summer but it's like a disco in my house when I turn on the Dyson now its winter. :s

My brother still lives at home and my mum is stupid enough to make his breakfast in the morning. He starts at 6am when he's working an early shift. Twice last week my mum was making him breakfast at 5.30am when when she blew the power in the house via two different toasters on two consequtive days. This is all fine and well until they play musical car's to get to the fuse box in the garage and the house alarm goes off when the power supply comes back on. I'm sure the neighbours loved the early wake up calls.

[Dave B]

I find that not living in the North is quite a good solution :D
I'm well and truly in the south-east, thank you very much :p

20 minutes without power. No drama, only that I've got to reset a load of clocks and remote sensors. Grrrr :s

[MrJan]

I'm well and truly in the south-east, thank you very much :p

May I provide you with a diagram distributed by the OS:

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/2905/englandcounties.gif

As you can see, it is quite likely that you are infact 'A Northerner' :D

[Dave B]

May I provide you with a diagram distributed by the OS:



As you can see, it is quite likely that you are infact 'A Northerner' :D
Nicely done :p

On the other hand my wife, watching Strictly Come Dancing at the weekend, refused to admit that Blackpool was far enough north to be considered in "the north" :eek:

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I find that not living in the North is quite a good solution :D

We don't even have running water yet :(

I couldn't be a southerner though. I heard you guys get out of the bath if you need to wee?

[GridGirl]

It's a new house and still under warranty. The builders electrical contractors will sort it out pretty quickly so I'm not too worried about it burning down just yet. :)

[Mark]

Warranty is only valid if the repairs are over £1,000. At least according to Watchdog last week.

[GridGirl]

I missed that last week and still need to watch it on Iplayer. The electrical contractors have got in touch and we just need to organise a date. As it's less that an year old it's probably classed as a snagging issue rather than a warranty issue at the moment. In the mean time I may just avoid going the vaccuming, washing, ironing and any other household chores that involve electricity. :D

[J4MIE]

When I was growing up, we used to get power cuts all the time, particularly if it got a bit windy, this went on for years until rather than fixing the problem with the cable, they decided to move it away from the trees.

Only a rare issue sice then, quite good fun really, not enough of it these days :)

[J4MIE]

When I was growing up, we used to get power cuts all the time, particularly if it got a bit windy, this went on for years until rather than fixing the problem with the cable, they decided to move it away from the trees.

Only a rare issue sice then, quite good fun really, not enough of it these days :)

[J4MIE]

How are the fish mark and what did you to get around the problem?

Gas cooker?? :p :

[Mark]

The electricity came on after 2 hours. Thankfully they were ok in their bucket in the meantime!

[MrJan]

I missed that last week and still need to watch it on Iplayer. The electrical contractors have got in touch and we just need to organise a date. As it's less that an year old it's probably classed as a snagging issue rather than a warranty issue at the moment. In the mean time I may just avoid going the vaccuming, washing, ironing and any other household chores that involve electricity. :D

As long as it's less than a year since the issue of practical completion then it'll probably be within 'defects' which the contractor will put right before receiving release of retention (typically 2.5% of his contract value). Worthing getting it sorted though, you so that it's done and the contractor so he can get his money :D

[Steve Boyd]

Only a rare issue sice then, quite good fun really, not enough of it these days :)
Just wait a few years until all the nuclear power stations in the UK (except for Sizewell B) are closed together with a number of coal stations and they're still debating over where to put some new ones. If they don't get the connector to Norway built by then there won't be enough generating capacity to go around & it will be just like the 3-day week from the early 70's all over again.

[Mark]

Quite so. They've been wringing their hands over this issue for years. In reality construction of new nuclear AND new coal stations should have started about five years ago! It's all very well talking about carbon emissions but they don't seem quite so important when your power is off!

[gadjo_dilo]

My cousin has a holiday house in a very picturesque area. Every summer when I go there there are storms and have problems with electicity. Sometimes for days.
It means we don't have water to wash ( and to pull on toilet ) . Then there are problems with the fridge.
And whenever we must go somewhere by car I pray to don't have an accident because we're dirty.

[Easy Drifter]

Mark: Told you you would get a bigger tank or more tanks!
In Ont. Premier Dad (McGuinty) is going big time with solar and wind neither of which are reliable enough. Flapping his gums about Nuclear and vowing to shut coal fired, instead of putting on the new scrubber technoligy which makes them clean. We now have very expensive power with a projected price increase of 46% over 5 years. Paying solar farms .82 cents per K while the customer pays between 7and 9 cents. That is sound economics according to Premier Dad.
As far as power cuts go it is a major problem in many parts of Ont. in every windstorm.
Our power co. fired 75% of their Foresters about 8 years ago to save money. No management types gone though. I wonder why we have trees and limbs over the lines every storm.
Sames a heck of a lot of money when the line crews then work mega overtime to repair things!

[Mark in Oshawa]

Mark: Told you you would get a bigger tank or more tanks!
In Ont. Premier Dad (McGuinty) is going big time with solar and wind neither of which are reliable enough. Flapping his gums about Nuclear and vowing to shut coal fired, instead of putting on the new scrubber technoligy which makes them clean. We now have very expensive power with a projected price increase of 46% over 5 years. Paying solar farms .82 cents per K while the customer pays between 7and 9 cents. That is sound economics according to Premier Dad.
As far as power cuts go it is a major problem in many parts of Ont. in every windstorm.
Our power co. fired 75% of their Foresters about 8 years ago to save money. No management types gone though. I wonder why we have trees and limbs over the lines every storm.
Sames a heck of a lot of money when the line crews then work mega overtime to repair things!

Lol...Economics as practiced by the Liberal Party of Ontario Drifter!

OPG are a bureaucracy stuffed full of political hacks, but even Premier Dad is hedging his bets and announced this morning the construction of two more 2000MW reactors at Darlington right beside me here in Oshawa. One of those reactors will producer MORE power than all the windmills and solar panels in this province but thanks to his generous support of those projects, the cost will be probably LESS for the reactor...lol.

OH my....power...and it is curious how the Labour Party who ruled Britain for the last decade is now out of power, and all the sudden all our UK friends are talking about how reactors and coal fired stations should have been replaced were not even talked about 5 years ago.

It always comes back to priorities and the basics. Take away the infrastructure of a society, and nothing else is possible. Too many politicians neglect this...and in the UK, the cost hasn't likely been even figured out....

Here..I know the cost, the hydro bill will show it....

[schmenke]

Did Pickering A not restart a few years ago? I thought the idea behind that was to alleviate some of the current strain on the grid?

[Mark in Oshawa]

Did Pickering A not restart a few years ago? I thought the idea behind that was to alleviate some of the current strain on the grid?
Pickering A was...but the refurbishment of it cost a ton of money. Lots of overruns. Of course, no one cares making the decisions, they just pass the cost on to us.

Darlington's 4 units are twice the size of the 6 units they still have at Pickering. The two they will add will keep a lot of people around here working in the next 10 years and they will be re-tubing two of the Darlington units as well.

[555-04Q2]

You realise how reliant we are on electricity when it goes off! Which Brockman has just reminded me of!

We've had quite a few power cuts since moving into our new house, the last one apparently due to a substation fault, another due to lightening hitting the overhead wires which supply the house (a slightly unsual arrangement!), and recently the washing machine of all things tripped our circuit breakers!

The latest one came at an inopportune time, when I was upgrading to a bigger fish tank - something you don't do every day! Fish in a bucket waiting to go into the bigger tank, but, no hot water, no kettle to boil hot water, boiler doesn't work as there's no electricity, no filter etc etc.

At least these days you've still got your mobile to ring up the electricity board to complain!

Don't you guys have standby generators over there or some other form of standby power? We have major power failures here all the time as our national power suppliers cannot build power stations fast enough keep up with our annual consumption increases and poor maintenance makes the problem even worse. For this reason most homes over here have standby generators.

Me, I have a unit that powers my whole house when the power goes down. Auto start, changeover etc. I can't even remember what a candle looks like :p :

[Mark]

Don't you guys have standby generators over there or some other form of standby power?


Critical establishments such as hospitals do of course, but households usually don't aside from having some torches and candles in the cupboard.

Cuts are still quite rare and they are usually fixed quickly. Sometimes in the winter months villages can be without power for several days if power lines come down in the snow, but that's usually sufficient to make the news!

[Daniel]

As mark said. It's not as common here as in sa. I've only spent 6 months in sa but have experienced 2 power cuts yet in the 4 years I've been here we've had only one

[555-04Q2]

Torches and candles work fine, except the heater won't work and you can't watch the footie on telly!

As Dan confirmed, we have constant power outages so we need some form of standby power. In 2008 when we had major rolling blackouts here, you could not find a candle, gas bottle, matches etc in any shop for about 30 days!

[Daniel]

another due to lightning hitting the overhead wires which supply the house (a slightly unsual arrangement!)

Edited for spelling :p

In Perth most houses still have overhead wires suplying power and it's quite common for car crashes to knock the power out :mark:

[Drew]

May I provide you with a diagram distributed by the OS:

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/2905/englandcounties.gif

As you can see, it is quite likely that you are infact 'A Northerner' :D

This is pretty much how I see the North v South thing too :p :

I can a power station out the window but we still get power cuts on Sunday evenings :confused: