How often does your electricity fail?

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#755834 4-Feb-2013 23:40

I bought a decent sized (2.2kw) generator immediately after the Feb22 quake and relied on it for about 2 weeks. It was enough to power the fridge/freezer, TV, computer, Mobile phone chargers for myself and a bunch of neighbours and the ADSL router... Actually was overkill but so what.

I also have a gas stove so was ok there too...

I never though too much about losing power (or water) before the quakes, but now I reckon I could happily survive weeks with the food and bottled water on hand. I also have several LED torches around the house and I maintain 20 odd litres of petrol which I cycle out through the cars to keep fresh.

Our services here in NZ are amazingly reliable really, and Chch actually seems to be more reliable than most places despite the quakes - but being prepared never hurt anyone *

Cheers - N

* Except those Prepper nuts. Being prepared to that extent has well and truly hurt their chances of being considered normal.

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

richms

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#755836 4-Feb-2013 23:43

4 or 5 good ones a year. most annoying is recurrance of the same faults. same tree done it twice. same wire broken twice with a ghetto mid span join done to repair.

what suprised me is the huge area out and for how long. but thats a story for when Im not on the phone.

Richard rich.ms

TheUngeek

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#755837 4-Feb-2013 23:52

One or two a year. Usually caused by some out of date part in a substation.
Although there was a huge one a few years back that saw the entire district (Tasman bay) blacked out for several hours. Main station feeding power in the bay blew. Oops.

FPR

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#755848 5-Feb-2013 00:30

DrCheese: Just checked with my retailer electricity supplier, PowerShop. There have been 20 outages in the last three years in my part of Dunedin, so about 6-7 per year. Contrast this with my internet service provider where I"m guessing there have been at least four outages in the last year, mostly due to planned upgrades or faults upstream.

DrCheese

What part of Dunedin are you in to get so many power cuts?
Here in Maryhill the last power cut was Christmas night (6-9pm) when a transformer went out in Elgin road. Before that I can't remember one.

Regs

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Snowflake

#755849 5-Feb-2013 00:50

robjg63:

Had a couple of momentary flickers on Saturday evening - Mt Eden area - around 10pm and sometime later.
Knocked the PCs over and made the lights flash.

I also had those two brownouts. Dont have a UPS on the Media Center box so it rebooted mid-movie.. Apart from those, i cant think when i've had any power cuts at this mt eden address - and i've been here for around 6-7 years.

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DrCheese

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#755879 5-Feb-2013 08:12

FPR:
DrCheese: Just checked with my retailer electricity supplier, PowerShop. There have been 20 outages in the last three years in my part of Dunedin, so about 6-7 per year. Contrast this with my internet service provider where I"m guessing there have been at least four outages in the last year, mostly due to planned upgrades or faults upstream.

DrCheese

What part of Dunedin are you in to get so many power cuts?
Here in Maryhill the last power cut was Christmas night (6-9pm) when a transformer went out in Elgin road. Before that I can't remember one.

Sawyers Bay. According to Powershop, there were 200 power outages in the last three years in "my area", presumably Dunedin.

David.

PhantomNVD

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#756367 5-Feb-2013 22:53

Just came across this in myiPad herald app, and thought of this thread :D

A press release from Vector: "Our electrical response crews attended one car v pillar and seven car v poles incidents during the week ... In perhaps the most unusual incident of the week, a remote-controlled aircraft flew into powerlines in Clevedon, causing an area outage. The model aircraft did not survive the crash." (Via Scoop.co.nz)

Lol!

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Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

mercutio

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#756437 6-Feb-2013 09:03

i never thought much of electricity outages until the christchurch earthquakes, then they were regular. then moved to auckland and they were regular too. on top of that power prices have gone up by about 40% since the big christchurch earthquake.

although in auckland i think the longest power outage i've experienced was only a few hours, it's gone out multiple times for half hour outages too.

skewt

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#756908 7-Feb-2013 13:05

Finally had my power go out today for the first time in years
Well... it's still out, since 7:30 this morning

Genesis are pretty useless,
- Had to call 3 times after getting cut off twice while being transferred in the first two calls (rang for a few minutes each time, then someone answered and hung up)
- They couldn't find my address in the system after spelling it out (not the hardest to spell street..)
- They couldn't find any record of my ICP number in their system (confirmed it was correct on all 3 phone calls and was printed on my bill)

Eventually they organized for someone to visit my house to fix the problem but can't tell me when or if ever they will be coming

When I had a quick look I noticed a 32amp RCD connected before the 'smart meter' wont do anything, so i assume it got taken out in a spike at 7:30

richms

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#756937 7-Feb-2013 13:56

32a breaker _before_ the meter? never heard of that before an 32 is a bit small.

Richard rich.ms

skewt

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#756964 7-Feb-2013 14:29

richms: 32a breaker _before_ the meter? never heard of that before an 32 is a bit small.

I thought that as well but its an outside cabinet with only the meter, RCD and ripple control (which was also in the off position?)
The smart meter currently has no power at all going to it and it appears to me that its wired before,
Of course I could be wrong and its meant for something else

richms

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#756973 7-Feb-2013 14:39

Not a remnant from a builders outlet in the cabinet is it? Seen that at one place. The socket was removed and the breaker left behind. Was downstream of the meter and had nothing to do with the 80a supply going thru to the house.

I couldnt cope with only 32A for everything. Surely its not running the whole house on only 32A ?

Richard rich.ms

skewt

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#756976 7-Feb-2013 14:46

richms: Not a remnant from a builders outlet in the cabinet is it? Seen that at one place. The socket was removed and the breaker left behind. Was downstream of the meter and had nothing to do with the 80a supply going thru to the house.

I couldnt cope with only 32A for everything. Surely its not running the whole house on only 32A ?

Its only a small (tiny) 2 bedroom house so it is possible that is is only a 32A
The house was built early 1900s but was rewired a few years ago before I moved in.

I did try move the breaker back to ON, it popped and wouldn't do anything after that

Cant connect to my router so I assume the power is still out, trust it to happen on the day I receive a Fritz!Fon to play with

richms

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#756981 7-Feb-2013 15:00

Oh dear, sounds like a downstream fault then, and when you turned it on the plinth/pole fuse went instead

Richard rich.ms

richms

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#759768 11-Feb-2013 21:32

And again today... https://twitter.com/Vectorltd/status/300826507171995648

Not sure on the fault this time, they never tell you, but again I expect it to be the miles and miles of 11kv overground cable between here and the substation and every single sideroad off it having a tree hit the line or something. Massive area cut and long time to resolve it.

Richard rich.ms

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