Supply Problems

Hundleton1 · Aug 26, 2012

Hi guys, after some help, we live in an end of terrace row of houses that is basically on a main road with a pavement then road, we are on a TT system with our own rod outside the door and our supply cable comes in from under the road and pavement outside the house, this then goes up the wall in conduit and into our house above the front door to out fuse and meter.

we got the house in 2007 have have always noticed that some times when a car passes down the road at night the lights dimm however this seems to be happening more frequent and now its almost with every car, wearily it only seems to happen with an empty road then a single car passes with a bit of pace.

we don't get any tripping or resetting of equipment like a cut would cause just lights dimming, any ideas ? voltage drop or cable issue under the road perhaps?

Just for some info im an domestic appliance engineer for one of the big brands, also have my 2330 but mostly done maintenance rather than installation. not done anything with supply anyway.

thanks

Richard Burns · Aug 27, 2012

Sounds like you may be attributing cars to the cause but could be something else.
Sounds like you are losing voltage at times, this could be due to a loose connection slowly getting worse, either at your supply / consumer unit or possibly at a neighbours house and then when a high power load is switched on the resistance of the connection causes the voltage to dip slightly. The supply may be also only just suitable for the load, especially if there are new houses around.
See if anything seems hot around the CU or the supply (without touching anything live) or if there is a smell of melting plastic.

MarkieSparkie · Aug 27, 2012

Contact your neighbours and ask them if they experience similar behaviour. Armed with all the relevant information you can obtain, contact the DNO and inform them of the problem and who is effected, they will investigate and arrange monitoring of supply over a period of time to confirm the voltage depressions (sags or drops, commonly termed brownouts) you experience. From their survey they should be able locate the source or cause of the fault and carry out any remedial action necessary.