Right, all sorted - where to start?
The guy who came out was VERY experienced. It seems there had been some confusion after the previous callout a month ago.
So let's start there. I wasn't there when the previous engineer turned out - I called them out on behalf of the shop, but couldn't wait around for them.
With English not being the first language of any of the shop owners, management, or staff, it appears Chinese whispers have been in place.
It transpires that firstly, the younger and less experienced engineer simply pulled the fuse from the centre socket and moved it to the right. Nothing else. Now I'm not dissing the engineer in the slightest, he did what he thought was the right thing, and if the pins on the fuse hadn't somehow gotten bent, which, once the fuse is back in place is almost impossible to tell. There were other anomalies that I'll touch on later that only experience would show.
The other thing - from what I'm gathering, and I'm still a little hazy on this, he MAY have suggested that the shop order the upgrade, but NOT to get the upgrade to 3 phase, just to repair the existing cutout.
This seems a bit weird, I don't know why he would suggest this and not just a repair, unless he thought the cut out was a 3 phase cut out. It turns out they can't work on anything other than single phase without cutting the power in the road, which means cutting the power to several buildings.
So, first things first. The previous engineer reused the existing fuse, but moved it to a new socket. It was the BOTTOM pins that got bent, so tonight's engineer is still at a loss as to why the TOP was getting hot - unless of course it was all getting hot and it was just the tail that made it noticeable. The bent pin was definitely the source of the arcing.
Here comes the anomaly, the top pins on the fuse were sprung, the bottom ones were not. Because of this, a fuse carrier without guides was used, which is probably why the bottom pins bent.
If you notice, the socket on the right has a spring in it at the top, but not at the bottom, matching with the sprung and unsprung pins. I don't know if one of these springs was moved at the same time the fuse was, but I'm assuming it must have been, because every other part of the sockets is sprung, and the other fuse carriers have tinned copper pins.
So unlike the previous engineer, this one took it all apart, and noted that the fuse socket on the left was in good condition. He was happy enough to move the fuse to this socket. He retrieved a fuse carrier from his vehicle with thick, sprung, pins, and removed the springs from the socket.
He checked that all screw connections were tight, and that the fuse fit was secure.
He also wrote a few things on the wall because they have an unusual setup!
To the right of the cut out is a little history of what he's done.
He's replaced one of the fuse carriers with a neutral plate, so he's written that it's live above that connection.
He's also labelled the connections Y R R - I'll get to that in a bit.
And, with the power back on, and the always on appliances on, he put a clamp on the live. Under normal circumstances they're only drawing about ¼ of the 23kW, so no where near overloading the system. As stated previously, 2 of the 6 lights in the fryer are not fitted. But I'm also wondering if they're actually rated up to 500W, and not just 250W, because that would then account for 3kW! I also noted that the lights are on dimmer circuits, so are not drawing their maximum potential anyway.
But the other thing, and potentially the reason why the younger engineer suggested a 3 phase upgrade to repair the 3 phase cutout, is because it's actually a 3 wire, 2 phase cut out. This means, that without digging up the road, should they need to increase their consumption, they can go up to 46kW.
Obviously there would be charges involved, but it wouldn't be the £4k for digging up the road. It would necessitate replacing the cut out, which in turn would mean cutting the power in the street, but it would still cost much less than a 3 phase upgrade.
But this engineer was also confident that a power upgrade was unnecessary. And that a cut out replacement is also currently unnecessary.
