Quick Query To The Sparks

[securespark]

Size? I didn't eyeball the genny, but the output was 20A

It was put near the back door, chained to the soilpipe & a cabled led into the house.

They are very noisy!

And the CO came in through the back door & set the customer's CO alarm off....

 

[Steve]

20A??? You cant even run a shower off that! You'd think even for a temp supply they'd have to give them a proper capacity.

 

[securespark]

It was only a little genny.

The idea was to give the customer a temp supply for things like lighting, boiler & a few small appliances.

 

[ColJack]

so are they paying for the takeaways while they can't use their electric cooker? and the twice a week hotel room so they can all have a shower?

I'd expect a supply at least equal to what I normally had...

 

[Click-Sure]

We had an agrekko one the size of a shipping container in the village for a week or so when they were doing a lot of work on the substaition and 11kv feed.

 

[securespark]

so are they paying for the takeaways while they can't use their electric cooker? and the twice a week hotel room so they can all have a shower?

I'd expect a supply at least equal to what I normally had...

Genny fitted at 1230, supply back on 1800.

 

[ColJack]

ah well you didn't say that did you?

for a few hours, the likelyhood of 2 faults occuring is minimal enough that I wouldn't worry about it being a floating supply..

for a floating supply, if you grabbed a live wire you'd still be safe as there's no reference to earth..

you would need to grab both wires or have one wire already faulted to earth to get a shock.

if it was for a few days or a week or so then I'd want a bigger supply and a decent earth..

 

[securespark]

What do the regs say about TEI's?

 

[ColJack]

it doesn't, the only temporary installation I can find is section 740, but that deals only with fairgrounds and the like.. intended to be installed repeatedly..

figure 9C of appendix 9 is a diagram of an "IT system with exposed conductive-parts earthed in groups or individually"

I suppose you could argue that the main bonding was providing an earth, but you're not supposed to rely on them..

 

[securespark]

But they had disconnected the main bonds from the PME terminal....

 

[ColJack]

if the PME neutral was O/C anyway, then you had no suppliers earth to start with..

they removed it so that in the case of a fault to earth from the IT system ( the fabled N-E short in the lighting circuit etc ) then you're not connected to their neutral while they try to fix it..

 

[securespark]

My point is that the install may well have been temporary, but that doesn't excuse the lack of earthing arrangements.

I know that TEI's cover things like fairgrounds etc.. but if you look at the definition of it, it says:

"Electrical installation erected for a particular purpose and dismantled when no longer required for that purpose."

 

[ColJack]

the key word there is "installation".. the installation would be the house.. it's still there, only it's source changed..

it's a permanent installation with a temporary supply..

 

[nozspark]

if the PME neutral was O/C anyway, then you had no suppliers earth to start with..

they removed it so that in the case of a fault to earth from the IT system ( the fabled N-E short in the lighting circuit etc ) then you're not connected to their neutral while they try to fix it..

It would also be more than likely out of phase!!

But that doesn't excuse the lack of providing an earth for the genny and what it's connecting to..