On Sat, 16 May 2020 20:55:16 +0100, Clare Snyder wrote:

On Sat, 16 May 2020 13:06:00 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:




My neighbour's roof caught fire because the incoming electricity feed
(going into the attic!) came loose from it's mounting and shorted. 6
months after I had warned him it was loose and he said "not my
problem, it's up to the electricity board". He lost his whole roof,
including many family photos stored up there, and had builders
repairing it on the insurance for a couple of months, while he rented
another place, also at their expense. I was astonished that the fire
service had no ability to turn off the power, and also wouldn't use
their hoses without turning it off (they could have just earthed
them). 30 minutes was wasted waiting in the middle of the night for
the electricity board to come out and turn it off. Not sure who ended
up paying. He claimed everything from the insurance, but if I was the
insurance company, the electric board and the fire service would have
been in big trouble.

To use water would have been stupid. Easy to say at your keyboard "all
they had to do was" but it is not always that easy. Firemen could have
lost their lives.

As for the electric board, why them? Were they notified of the
potential problem? The homeowner was a jackass either way not caring
about his own safety.
Around here they would just clip the wires at the pole (or pop a pole
fuse in a rural area) with a "hot stick"

Except the British fire brigade are pansies.