Thursday, February 17, 2005
A bad week
I've had better weeks.
It started on Tuesday with some flickery lights. These were not UFO's or anything, simply the ones in my lounge. I thought: "dodgy electricity supply". Then my firewall, which is quite a noisy old P2 machine running Linux, rebooted as did my game PC. I thought "dodgy electrics in my house" and decided to investigate.
On opening the cupboard under the stairs, I noticed that ionised electric smell as of a Scalextric set and could sometimes here a crackling. It transpired that a connection block between the meter and the two fuseboxes on the live wire was running a little hot. The effect was better with the lights off because then I could see little red hot pinpricks coming off it. I thought it would be a good idea to turn off all unnecessary electrics and consult a qualified high voltage electrical distribution engineer (my Dad). It took much soul searching to decide that my PC was unnecessary electrics.
The consensus was that a qualified electrician from the electricity company was required since there was no fuse that I could see that would allow me to isolate the faulty wiring. The electrician came and did a grand job and also took seventy-five of my pounds (money not weight sadly) away with him.
My troubles were over except that this morning as I was driving to work, a nice man drove his car into the side of mine. It was his first ever accident and he was ever so upset. I felt quite sorry for him. His business card says he is a central heating engineer. Perhaps I'll ask him to do my next boiler service.
In the meantime, it's insurance company time.
It started on Tuesday with some flickery lights. These were not UFO's or anything, simply the ones in my lounge. I thought: "dodgy electricity supply". Then my firewall, which is quite a noisy old P2 machine running Linux, rebooted as did my game PC. I thought "dodgy electrics in my house" and decided to investigate.
On opening the cupboard under the stairs, I noticed that ionised electric smell as of a Scalextric set and could sometimes here a crackling. It transpired that a connection block between the meter and the two fuseboxes on the live wire was running a little hot. The effect was better with the lights off because then I could see little red hot pinpricks coming off it. I thought it would be a good idea to turn off all unnecessary electrics and consult a qualified high voltage electrical distribution engineer (my Dad). It took much soul searching to decide that my PC was unnecessary electrics.
The consensus was that a qualified electrician from the electricity company was required since there was no fuse that I could see that would allow me to isolate the faulty wiring. The electrician came and did a grand job and also took seventy-five of my pounds (money not weight sadly) away with him.
My troubles were over except that this morning as I was driving to work, a nice man drove his car into the side of mine. It was his first ever accident and he was ever so upset. I felt quite sorry for him. His business card says he is a central heating engineer. Perhaps I'll ask him to do my next boiler service.
In the meantime, it's insurance company time.
