View Full Version : Major electrical fault in Wick (280 homes)
I get home from work early on a Friday and it seem that a fair chunk of Wick was without power. Every electrician in the area was trying to fix it or replace any electrical meters damaged because of it. As for the cause I heard something about two live wires going into a junction instead of a live or a neutral meaning that the voltage was too high.
My house has power now, but it seems that my rather expensive gaming laptop was damaged beyond repair, I'm certain of this because computing/IT is my hobby, my job and what I have trained and studied to do. Anyway before I go trawling the internet does anyone know if I can get a replacement from my electrity supplier or if I'll have to claim it through contents insurance?
yip look likes its fried me mums fridge,,power going to it but not a lot happening inside, poor old dear, been on the phone worried sick, all day,, ohh what kind of sparky puts two live wires into a junction, yur having a laugh surely.
yip look likes its fried me mums fridge,,power going to it but not a lot happening inside, poor old dear, been on the phone worried sick, all day,, ohh what kind of sparky puts two live wires into a junction, yur having a laugh surely.
Well that's what a couple of people have told me, one from G&A Barnie the other from Scottish Gas. Fried the junction boxes and a lot of meters. It went down for me at 09:50 today.
I it seems your right , have just been off the blower,, with peeps ,, tv,s fried and everything, and the hydro mannie took my mothers details and what was damaged in the hoose,, he says you should be able to claim from whoever is responsible.
Surprised you dont have a surge protector , cheap enough and most come with a guarantee that if they fail they will cover the cost to replace your pc etc.
Surprised you dont have a surge protector,,, lol,, wondering how long that was going to take someone to say ,, lol
I have several surge protectors actually, unfortunately I'm not the only one in my house, other people use my stuff and they think 'all those cables look ugly'
Final damage seems to be an LCD TV that is now making a weird buzzing noise, a dishwasher, a gaming laptop, a standard laptop and a netbook.
god i feal for you dude ,, bummer or what, not a good start to a weekend.
Stack Rock
28-Oct-11, 17:39
I recall that a few years ago a 'spike' in the voltage resulted in several appliances being frazzled. The hydro paid compensation. I'm sure that power surges do occur from time to time for some reason but not everyone in the vacinity suffers damaged appliances.
Well my electrical meter exploded, as in the bit before the fusebox that calculates usage so it's just a guess but I think the people with damaged appliances are those with damaged meters. Anyway I have some more details: A team/company called Shield will be coming up from Manchester tomorrow they'll be going door to door between 09:00 and 10:00 and will test and try to fix stuff. A slight concern is how these fixes will affect warranties and the fact that this sort of damage can be systemic: Say they fix the immediate electrical problem the surge has most likely caused additional damage which will decrease the life time of a device and make it more prone to future faults etc.
I have no ideas of the legality of it all, but if the fault was caused by negligence on behalf of the electricity supplier I'm sure they'll offer compensation. How long that compensation will take is another matter.
"Shield" will no doubt manage to fix some of the simple faults, blown fuses etc, maybe even control boards in washing machines, but a lot of sensitive electronics that weren't surge protected will be dead.
Good luck!
peedie man
29-Oct-11, 11:58
it was on high voltage for at least 20 min smoke was coming from sky box but its still working ,lots of other things not going we have no heating as it blew the fan in boiler no phones or wireless modem ,micro wave and the list goes on .do we get in touch with our insurers or the hydro
Saw similar thing in Dunbeath a while back. Company (maybe Sheild, not sure) fixed 90% of things simply and replaced what they couldn't. On most appliances there is a wee doodar on the circuit board that blows in these cases, it's not a fuse but acts similar to one (can't remember the technical term). They replace them and everything is tickety boo.
According to their blurb it doesn't affect warranties and they also warranty the work they do for a further 12 months IIRC.
2little2late
29-Oct-11, 14:48
Well that's what a couple of people have told me, one from G&A Barnie the other from Scottish Gas. Fried the junction boxes and a lot of meters. It went down for me at 09:50 today.
Well, you know what they say "electricity and gas do not mix".
I got my houses cavity wall insulated by Scottish/British Gas, and I'm electric - wonderful what they can do
Well my electrical meter exploded, as in the bit before the fusebox that calculates usage so it's just a guess but I think the people with damaged appliances are those with damaged meters. A 33,000 volt wire fell upon local electric service. As a result, hundreds of electric meters exploded from their pans. Many people had damaged appliances and destroyed plug-in protectors. At least one even had failed circuit breakers.
My friend knows someone who actually knows this stuff. He had only one properly earthed 'whole house' protector. A superior solution that also costs less money. So he had no appliance damage. Only his electric meter was blown from its pan.
peedie man
30-Oct-11, 21:44
there must be lots of things to sort 280 houses
Crackeday
01-Nov-11, 12:26
Doesnt always work I have surge protectors on my PC set up but after a surge the MOBO and RAM blew on my tower but everything else worked fine, strange.......
I'm still waiting for them to get to me, understandably those with heating problems are a priority.
porshiepoo
01-Nov-11, 13:07
Apparantly if you'd all been protected with RCBO's which offer surge protection and earth fault current protection instead of RCD's which don't, the damage would have been minimal.....
Not really of any benefit to y'all now sadly but worth knowing for the future?
Good excuse for you manky Wickers not to wash, with all your boilers and electric showers being fubared!!
Crackeday
01-Nov-11, 14:27
Good excuse for you manky Wickers not to wash, with all your boilers and electric showers being fubared!!
At least we have electric in wick unlike some!!!!!!!
It was a faulty transformer that caused the spike by the way!!
At least we have electric in wick unlike some!!!!!!!
Like who/where for example?
Neil Howie
03-Nov-11, 23:22
RecQuery - Well my electrical meter exploded, as in the bit before the fusebox that calculates usage so it's just a guess but I think the people with damaged appliances are those with damaged meters. Anyway I have some more details: A team/company called Shield will be coming up from Manchester tomorrow they'll be going door to door between 09:00 and 10:00 and will test and try to fix stuff. A slight concern is how these fixes will affect warranties and the fact that this sort of damage can be systemic: Say they fix the immediate electrical problem the surge has most likely caused additional damage which will decrease the life time of a device and make it more prone to future faults etc.
Thanks for that post; it came in useful on the Saturday,
hope u r sorted now
Well that post electrical fault repair company (they're called Haste Ltd not Shield) replaced a TV, still waiting on them for the dishwasher. They replaced the AC adapters for the laptops and then they actually tried to tell me that laptops won't work without a battery (battery was damaged). After calling their bluff about 'talking to the boss/a computer technician' showing them a laptop that worked without a battery and saying that if they brought me one that wouldn't work without a battery that I'd eat it. They eventually took the laptop away for repair.
I know this isn't over they'll come back to me with more crap soon, I had a feeling they'd be awkward with the laptops.
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