Dear All
A long long long time ago. :o)
Where it all started!
Welcome back to another sager on Un-linking the Looped supply from two other properties.
In the process of changing from the original supply fit by the DNO in the 1930’s to fitting a set of brand new SMETS2 meter.
It turned out that the complete Head would need to be updated to Current electrical Regs. If you look closely you can see two black leads coming out from the bottom of the green box. This means that you are on a Looped Supply. These green boxes whilst stylish, also have a lot of small parts that can fall and touch stuff that goes bang and takes out the main fuse back at the transformer. So, un-surprisingly the SMART meter exchange chap said he would arrange for the DNO to visit to upgrade the head.
Developer Saving money in the 1930’s? Still no change there then.
Original DNO Head Supply
Let me explain. In, the 1930’s. UK House Developers save money by only connecting one of the houses out of the terraced. Then, shared the connection with another 2 to up to 5 others to save money on the connection fee.
Well in the 1930’s they might of accepted that Electrical appliance were very rare. Sharing a 60 Amp supply with 3-5 others wouldn’t be a problem. Right?
But, since then this has been found to be a really bad decision by the DNO’s to allow this to happen at all. Up to now, they have been trying to ignore the problem.
Returning to the Actual point.
Back in the distant past. December 2021. I ask the DNO to remove the loop from other properties. So, I could install a new Hypervolt car charger. As current Regs don’t allow an Qualified electrician to connect a EV charge as is. Once, I had got over the initial. What you talking about stage. (not my problem)
This means that these households, now need to be un-looped and provided with there own supply directly from the mains in the road.
Despite the first DNO engineer visit coming to this conclusion in the first place. That two new electrical supplies are going to have to be laid to each house in the block.
It took the DNO another 5 visits over 6 month to establish, this same view point again? They did conclude in their multiple visits that the loop supply came out of the property and across the front window bay in each case. Which, is not necessarily the case most of the time. They normally just jump through the wall in between the properties. Hope you don’t have that. As, this means the floors are coming up!
However, this was established by the first engineer, he just wasn’t believed! (even though he used to work for the DNO!) I will leave you to your own conclusion. But, they constantly complained to me that they don’t have any resources? Well, I can see why not!
As we are now electrifying the UK with Heat Pump’s & EV’s. Being in a looped power supply home is no longer realistically possible.
Whilst, an EV as such is only adding 7kW load. Having added up all the other two current household appliances in the other connected houses. That shared 100/60Amp fuse is looking very doggy idea.
However, the more concerning point. I would consider myself to be on the leading edge of EV adoption and it seems that the DNO’s have no idea of the tsunami of requests that are going to arrive at their Front Service Desk. What is also chilling is they don’t even know the numbers involved! As they don’t have records, according to one conversation.
So, word to the wise. DON’T lose your Job Reference number. As they can’t look up your job up any other way. Giving them your house number and PostCode – doesn’t bring up all the Jobs on that house, as you would expect a sensible record system to do!
Nope, that would be using commonsense. No “Job Ref/Number” – then NO answer.
It’s starting to look worrying doesn’t it? Penny didn’t drop when my local Professional Electrician started laughing back in December, 2021. As he was obviously aware of the task ahead of me.
Summary:
After nearly a year of faffing around, the DNO is due to start digging on 17th October and on 18th the cabling should be corrected – So, each houses has their own supply.
So, if you are planning to get an EV charger in the UK in the near future. Then, make sure you have checked that your not on a linked supply, if you are? Then, get on the growing DNO service list soon. Otherwise, you might be waiting a very long time.
Until Next time, Stay Safe.
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