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[roseway]

Yesterday we had a 12-hour power cut starting at 1:30 pm. It was a most peculiar affair because the power didn't go right off, but just dropped to about half its normal voltage, and drifted up and down over the hours. It took a while for me to work out what was happening because power indicator lights and similar things were still working, but my UPS was bleeping and the DECT phones didn't work.

There was an absolutely uninformative recorded message on the electricity company's power cut reporting line, so nobody had any idea what was happening or how long it was likely to last. In the event, I decided at 10:30 pm that I'd had enough of trying to read by candlelight and went to bed. The power came back about 1:30 this morning.

[Accordion]

Shocking!

[scottiesmum]

Eric,  just pay the bill  !!! 

[Achilles Last Stand]

Let's hope the leccy company have seen the light now then  8)

[Floydoid]

It was back to the abacus then?

[roseway]

I should have known better than expect any sympathy from you lot

[guest]

Sounds like the insulation between live and neutral is breaking down.

The only reason I know this is because exactly the same thing happened to our house (just our house) last year and when it finally went it went with a bang! Melted 3000 amp (or thereabouts) cabling is very impressive You could smell it before they dug the hole in the pavement - no kidding.

Best bet I find when the power goes off is to take a wander around until you find the contractors digging up the road/whatever and ask them. Once they realise you know what 3 phase is then they're pretty free with information as the power generators information lines are a waste of time : "We are aware of a fault affecting.....blah blah blah" That translates to "A load of people have called us so we know you don't have power but that's all we know as the people fixing it don't work for the same company as us and so they don't talk to us"

[roseway]

This particular power cut was fairly widespread - it covered several local villages - so I would probably have had to do a lot of wandering to find it.

A similar thing happened several years ago, and I thought there was a safety issue, because my gas boiler was trying to start up but there wasn't enough power to make the igniter work. So unburnt gas was pouring out of the flue, completely uncontrolled. I switched it off of course, and rang the emergency line to point out what I considered to be a safety issue, but they weren't interested.

[tuftedduck]

Roseway looks for contractors digging up road.

[roseway]

Smart looking chap, eh? 8)

[oldfogy]

We have the odd power cut every so often, but I have a UPS in the living room for the laptop, so I just plug the table lamp into that (yes, one of those energy saving type lamps).

On the last occasion it lasted well over three hours in total before I finally turned it off after the power came back.
I might try it one day just out of curiosity to see how long it would actually last.
It's only a small Belkin 350 watt? and admittedly the beeping gets a bit annoying though.

I recently also fitted a emergency light fitting that comes on automatically if there is a power-cut.
So next time all my neighbours will be wondering whats going on. 

[kitz]

Glad you power is all restored now eric.

Did the drop in voltage affect your dsl?

[roseway]

No, as soon as I realised what had happened I turned the router off, and no damage was done to my IP profile (or anything else).

[kitz]

 

[Accordion]

We have the odd power cut every so often, but I have a UPS in the living room for the laptop, so I just plug the table lamp into that (yes, one of those energy saving type lamps).

On the last occasion it lasted well over three hours in total before I finally turned it off after the power came back.
I might try it one day just out of curiosity to see how long it would actually last.
It's only a small Belkin 350 watt? and admittedly the beeping gets a bit annoying though.

I recently also fitted a emergency light fitting that comes on automatically if there is a power-cut.
So next time all my neighbours will be wondering whats going on. 

Good ideas OF - might do that myself. We don't get many power cuts though, just one in the six years and a bit we've been here.