On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:30:58 GMT, Harry Bloomfield wrote:

Dave Liquorice has brought this to us :
The phase feeding that small terrance has a problem. One of the other
phases feeding the other block is OK. With 173 incoming I'd switch
off at the main breaker and call the REC and report it. Some kit may
object by letting out the magic smoke with such a supply. Other kit
will start just draw more current and your cooker/fan heater
experiment indicates that there is plenty of current available, just
that the voltage is low.

I would not expect an entire terrace to be on one single phase.

I would, especially if the properties were planned for gas CH.

As someone pointed out, the (ESI) planning standard when installing new
services on an estate was R-Y-B-B-Y-R-R-Y-B and so on. I can't remember the
theory now, but this gives better load distribution than R-Y-B-R-Y-B-R-Y-B.

Dunno if it's still the case but 4 way service joints were generally the
maximum, due to the physical limitations of making the connections inside
the joint.

If the houses were gas CH then an individual service could well be looped
to the next property, especially if the properties were mirrored so the
meter positions of adjoining properties are close together. Distribution of
phases along the main then becomes R-R-Y-Y-B-B-B-B-Y-Y-R-R-R-R-Y-Y etc.

This would be most prevalent in high density housing developments. Lower
density, the dwellings are obviously spread out more, and it becomes less
easy to maintain the sequence depending on mains cable routing.

--
The Wanderer

Most organizations are like Russian dolls
- each has another inside.