It's been a wet and windy week here in Sydney as I write this, 2 days after the event here.
After a wet and quite windy night, I awoke early and clicked the bedside radio on. A little after 7AM it was up and at it. Walking into the kitchen I noticed the display on the microwave was dark. Hmmmm. Didn't take long to realise that only part of the house had power. Interesting. Well, I guess after the wind and rain, Energy Australia had lost a phase in their network. Aside: power as delivered in Australia has 3 phases; many houses use only one, but I have 3 for the heating. And different parts of the house use different phases. Hence, some parts worked, others didn't.
The good news was the kitchen power points were active! So and toast and tea was good. Off to the shower, and when I come out, the house is completely dead. Well, perhaps Energy Australia are onto the problem.
Then my neighbour Jodie knocked on the front door and explained what had happened.
|
|
|
| Power pole during building | Power pole on 20 July 2011 |
The cause of the problem - serious corrosion. Curious that it
only appears to be at level of the grass. Above and below is quite
good.
The remnants of the top of the pole. When it crashed onto the driveway
it either damaged or dislodged the fuses on my three phase supply.
Thus, part of the house still had power. Until, for good safety
reasons, Energy Australia arrived and cut off the power completely.
And removed the wire running across the road to their power pole
across the street. The wire running off to the left was cut
just outside the frame.
After attempts at locating an electrician to replace the pole,
Stephen found a company who would let us know at 09:30 when they
could come. There are limited companies who can install the pole
and connect it to the power lines across the street; general electricians
are not qualified/certified for this work. Anyway, by 16:30, when
this photo was taken, the new pole was in position, and cables were
being fed into it.
Progress is good - the last of the 3 power feeds is going up the
pole to be connected. And that's my cable!
Finally, by about 18:00, the power was back on! Enjoyable it was. A hot meal, and a warming home. Over ten hours without power allowed me to catch up on some reading material, and a battery powered radio provided information and entertainment during the day.