Latest moan from you and me - 2016

The electricity/water/gas saga continues.

We've been connected since they went away Friday evening, leaving a hole in the road (outside nice neighbour's garden) and traffic lights covering 100yds of road.

This morning one van returned and the driver was the leccy foreman. He had turned up just as we were going out and sat in his cab. Three hours later he was still sitting there.

I had a nice chat with him and got an update from him. They can't fill the hole in because, when they've found the fault, elsewhere, he will have to connect people's houses to the correct phase. The next place for them to dig is outside our house, right across the entrance to ours and nasty neighbour's driveways.

He couldn't start that job from Friday night because they need a steel sheet to put across the hole for when n. neighbour wants to get out, and none were available for the weekend (different type of vehicle needed to deliver it).

When he heard that the sheet was on its way he called out the digging team and they have dug out some of the road but can't continue until the sheet turns up - three hours late at the moment.

The man broke up the surface of the road, through tarmac and concrete, and then got his spade out to clear it and dig out the clay. When he saw that the hole was full of water he said to the foreman that he can't do the work. The foreman asked where his special wellies and water pump were. "Didn't bring them! Why aren't the water authority here fixing the leak?" Answer, "Because they won't come out when there's an electric fault." Foreman told him to get on with it!

They had marked out the digging area for the electrics with red paint. I pointed out that their red paint goes through the blue painted area that the water authority marked out the other week as being the possible site of the water leak. The foreman said he has alerted the water authority that he will call them out when he knows when the leccy break is nearly fixed. Then they won't need to dig the hole.

I asked the foreman whether the yellow painted marks were from the gas authority showing where the gas pipes are. He said that they were and they didn't want to cut through the main again. I explained to the foreman that all they must have done was go in a straight line from where they did a gas repair six months ago (400yds away) all the way to where the current gas break was. I then told him that the gas main doesn't go in a straight line. He looked rather puzzled until I told him that when they were installing the gas main, years ago, I paid the workmen some money to avoid going through my plants on the front. So I marked out where the main actually goes. They'll avoid both sets of marks.

So, we're waiting for the metal sheet to turn up, then they will dig out the rest of the road and, hopefully, find the problem (I wouldn't hold my breathe). Then they will see whether all three phases are accessible there so that they can put us on a working one (we're already on a working one ). Otherwise they may have to cut us off.

Next instalment tomorrow.

 

What a faff @shiney

 

We're wondering whether to run a book on when they will eventually get it finished.

 

It's almost over. I hope

It all started Thursday morning when they came and dug out this hole. It's still open because they need to reinstate the houses that side of us to the correct phase.


There were lots of vehicles when they had the gas men turn up after cutting through the gas main but by yesterday there were less of them


but including the crane lorry with the metal sheet (water from the leak visible)


and the new hole being dug


The different markings are the different services. Water - blue, electric - red, gas - yellow. Except that isn't where the gas runs!

 

I wouldn't have been too happy sitting in the hole, feet in water and running earthing cables through the water before cutting the power cables. The water is actually deeper than it appears because he had to put a board across the water to keep them from being totally submerged.



He tried cutting the cables with normal cutters but they weren't good enough


He separated all the phases with plastic pegs and inserted a plastic plate to support the heavy duty ratchet cutters.




The phases were all bent away from each other and capped off. The caps were plastic and were brazed onto the cable.




They then had to continue digging back until they found the damage. They knew they were close to it because of the black oily substance floating on the water in the mud to the right of the cable


Which gradually became revealed. This shows the metal casing that the cables run in and a dent in the casing (from middle of picture going to the right) which had obviously been done by one of the other utilities at some time.


The water had entered through the cracked casing and blown the power on one of the phases. They then had to continue digging back far enough to get past where the water had run along inside the casing before they could install new casing.

All the houses to the left of where they had cut the cables still had power and all to the right were cut off. They had notified everyone that they would cut it off at 6.30 p.m. and they stood, or sat, around waiting. They were all looking at the time on the smart phones (are watch makers going out of business?) and I checked them on my watch.

They told me that, with a bit of luck, they should have us back on before midnight. So we pottered around in the garden whilst it was still light and then went off to the Chinese for a late dinner. We had our meal and then sat chatting to the waiters (when they weren't waiting) until it got late. We got home just as they were reconnecting everything.

We made them all a cuppa, they tidied up, put the metal sheet across the hole (so that n. neighbour could get out) and packed up. We're now left with two holes (120ft apart) traffic lights to slow vehicles down and no workmen. I suppose they'll be back sometime to reinstate the road unless the water authority ask the to leave it open for them - but they didn't reach the source of the water leak.

It's a different company that does the reinstating so we could be waiting for days or weeks!