On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:24:43 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Got a call from a mate tonight - said his lights had gone dim. ;-)
And so it proved - the volts in the house read 173. 25 year old town house
in a terrace of four in South London. Everybody out in that block - but
got a neighbour on the other side in another block in and checked it there
- 233v.
The services and CU etc were in an 'outhouse' at the front door with no
light - but everything seemed ok. Nothing hot or smoking.
Switching on the heaviest load - the cooker - made only about a volt or
so difference. Tried a fan heater too - the fan only just turned.

They'd been having probs with their boiler recently - and tonight it
doesn't work at all. Wonder if it was low volts causing the original
problem there? Not something you'd expect the average service engineer to
check.

So what's the likely cause? I'd have expected a sub station to feed the
whole area.

Report it straight away. Dunno if it's still the case, but I have the idea
in the back of my mind LEB used to run lots of their lv systems all
interconnected, no open points, so it could be a fuse gone in the closest
s/s with a backfeed coming from a much greater distance.

Why they did it I have no idea, I know fault levels were always a problem
in the London area.


--
The Wanderer

Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information
available.