What was the problem we need specifics 😮😮
We have very little in common, we watched what she wanted on tele, I missed loads of car shows, she's not as agile as me so can't just go out walking or round the shops but most of all she was starting to call me cars and caravan 'ours' and she is drifting into debt again and I don't like her family. That'll do for starters :D
 
We have very little in common, we watched what she wanted on tele, I missed loads of car shows, she's not as agile as me so can't just go out walking or round the shops but most of all she was starting to call me cars and caravan 'ours' and she is drifting into debt again and I don't like her family. That'll do for starters :D
Ah the royal ours or we.

That's fair enough. Not a fan of flog it then.
 
OK, I'll try not to make this too lengthy and boring, I spent much of last night looking for a photo which might help explain part of it because I definitely emailed it to the electricity people for them to forward to Endesa and convince them that a repair was necessary, but I couldn't recover it from the emails...

Re. The 3-phase, yes its the head. The pump has to raise the water 100m and a single phase motor isn't up to it. I think there is a general theory that a motor over a certain hp is more practical or efficient as 3-phase anyway. The depth seems hard to believe but when we have replaced it the truth is laid bare by how far up the track the pipe had to be pulled to get it all out!

I have to admit that I had not heard of a floating neutral before this happened the first time but I researched the symptoms after we had a small fire and took it from there but the utility took some convincing.

The manifestation is odd, the sockets in the house will still work although problems with 3-phase equipment may arise and it can also cause damage. Basically it is caused when the distribution transformer does not have a bushing tieing the Neutral and Earth together, relying on local Earths instead. The Neutral always 'floats' a bit, it seems usual for it to be about 4v above Earth potential and varies if the load is not balanced across the phases and there can be a distribution side fault without causing a power cut but if the fault is one of the phases shorted to ground, it causes the neutral at the transformer to float a lot and the supply voltage between each phase and Neutral to be maintained.

This means that L-N is still 230v but there are some nasty surprises which is why I think it is a dangerous situation - if you take a multi meter and measure N-E under these circumstances it is about 180v and L-E is about 410v - and you are not expecting the Neutral to have that kind of voltage present, bearing in mind anything over 50v can be enough to kill. The Live at over 400v to Earth is what bothers me because although the RCD would trip if you touched something live (I hope!), a domestic RCD is designed to trip at 30mA which is considered a safe current level but is that safe at 400v? I wouldn't want to find out.

As a 3-phase customer I can go to the meter or the distribution board at the well pump control and compare the phases which will show them all elevated with reference to Earth except one which will be very low - that is the one with the fault. The phase-phase voltage will be maintained as is the domestic voltage at the house sockets.

I had to demonstrate this to the engineers on the first occasion to get them to take it seriously although at least someone was sent out. Because the power is overhead on metal poles, the wind can damage the suspension points and allow a bundle to sag, if it then rubs on the top of the tower it will wear through the insulation until it contacts and if it is a Live conductor, hey presto. The photo I was looking for showed one arcing nicely.

Re. lightning our elevated and exposed position plus the overhead power makes us prone. The towers are like bloody lightning rods! Again I've got photos of overhead cables with the insulation blown off where there must have been a direct hit. We've lost to lightning countless light bulbs, two well pump motors, two plug in timers, three internet power supplies, two routers, two UPSs, a few circuit breakers, one dishwasher, one fridge freezer, one oven, a couple of lamp ballasts and a couple of extension leads.

The extension leads in fact were interesting to observe; because it was the first occurrence of this at the time the implications were unknown in advance but the lead was outside and plugged in, despite a power cut due to the storm, being plugged in made a difference. The insulation was burst off the lead at approx 1 metre intervals and one of the conductors was actually severed and melted where this had happened at a couple of points. The lead had passed under a gate and an arc had jumped from this to the gate and earthed through the bolt, exploding the concrete step. I didn't see any of this happen since we were taking cover somewhere but the evidence was there. Now if there is ever a storm nearby everything is unplugged or disconnected, such a strike will jump circuit breaker contacts and even fuses, even if the first strike caused them to blow, so now no chances are taken.
This may be a really dumb question, but wouldn't some strategically placed lightning conductors help you with all this?
Cannot believe the expense you must have been put to with all that damage. Unless the insurance covered it.
Considering what you have to unplug whenever a storm is in the offing, just having to unplug the Hub/router seems like child's play in comparison.
 
We have very little in common, we watched what she wanted on tele, I missed loads of car shows, she's not as agile as me so can't just go out walking or round the shops but most of all she was starting to call me cars and caravan 'ours' and she is drifting into debt again and I don't like her family. That'll do for starters :D

Yer so see that ours thing id have booted her ages ago, here luv do one ya auld trout...
As for agile well this aint AG so I cant say what I want to say 🤣🤣
 
Wow that's some impressive growth although its a fair few years. Rolling a reply to several of your posts into one to save filling the whole thread with long missives - seeing how high up you are it seems surprising you have so many springs etc, I suppose there is a lot more rain/water in France generally than down in southern Iberia. They certainly have done your trees etc a lot of good. You're higher up than us, the first place was about 720m but we're at only 420m now.

I have heard about the wild weather you sometimes get there, seen that massive hail you mentioned, on the news especially in SW France. Fortunately that is a bit rarer here although I have seen a car which had clearly been subjected to it - with replacement glass but everything else as-is.

Do you have any idea how much saved rainwater you are getting through? 40 cubic metres of water from the main doesn't seem too bad considering I can see we've used about 37 cubic metres so far this year, all delivered by lorry of course!
It is a bit difficult to say how much rainwater we collect as once it has filled the underground tank any more simply goes down the overflow. And of course we only use it when we are here which is to say April to September. I think the tank holds 3000 litres, so not huge, and we have had to drop the pump down a bit to get it to pump since we first put it in, but it still isn't on the bottom, but we do only use it to water the polytunnel and the raised beds outside plus a very few other pots of plants.

Geologically our area is interesting. To the north of us is a region called the "Sidobre" which is massively granite, the huge local business is quarrying it and turning it into monumental masonry as it isn't much cop for anything else as it is basically just a grey colour, although one town decided to use it to pave the pavements with. But it does have a big lot of tourist attractions with huge rocks balanced on others, waterfalls, lakes with rocks in that look like the backs of whales etc. Donkeys' years ago some volcano somewhere nearby must have bust a gut and chucked thousands of tons of lava etc up in the air which landed simply all over the place.

But on a geological map of our little local area, around our hamlet, there are a bunch of circles of which our place is at the centre. Which accounts for why we and our neighbours are constantly coming across lumps of granite on our land varying in size from nearly that of a house to smaller than a golf ball. We had to be very careful where we picked to dig to put the house up. One of our neighbours' builders discovered a massive granite block just inches below the level of his basement floor, if it had been any higher they would have had to have had a massive rethink. We have two blocks like that in two different places on our land.

So for some reason the ground possesses a lot of underground springs, But not all houses' land is the same. The neighbour just mentioned has as much land as us, i.e. 6000 sq metres and he has no springs at all, although he is only half a mile from us, as he is a very keen gardener he is dead jealous.

Funny stuff water.
 
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Evening all, I got an emergency appointment at boots eye clinic today as I got a hot bit of metal in my eye, I say hot
I lit up the burning torch which burns at 3000 degrees & instantly something sparked up from the ground & had burnt
my eye I had my mask & my burning visor on normally you lite the the torch then get into position then put the visor down.

Nowt in it just a white burn mark on the eye & on my eye lid, still I went back to work & loaded the scrap skips with the cut up
steel the lads had left, they dont drive the grab machine only a select few have the privilege.

Drambuie now open & ive had a beer so cheers to you lot. :)
Glad it wasn't more serious!;)
 
We have very little in common, we watched what she wanted on tele, I missed loads of car shows, she's not as agile as me so can't just go out walking or round the shops but most of all she was starting to call me cars and caravan 'ours' and she is drifting into debt again and I don't like her family. That'll do for starters :D
I have ditched three women for being boring.
The first bizarrely was massively intelligent, we were both about 18 and living together she had three A grade A levels which back in 1973 was a big deal, but we would go to the pub and say nothing to one another. She had no conversation at all and I ran out of things to say to her. (Imagine that for a few secs you lot!!!)
The second was a wee Welsh woman who was unbelievable in bed but boring as flip outside of it, again, she failed the convo in the pub test. But I was able to get rid of her easily as she got mad jealous if any woman she didn't know even looked at me, as if I was Arnie for flip's sake! So she did that once too often when we were staying with friends and embarrassed the flip out of me, so we got home and it was the perfect excuse to give her her marching orders.
The third well by that time I had a bit more practice in, spotted it quickly and ended it before it had really started. She was a bit bewildered but that was that.

Funny that in the end what makes a relationship can be something as simple as is she interesting/funny! But that combined with the other reasons...... well I'd have done exactly the same as you. Her feet were very nearly in concrete under your table so good on you for prying them out in time!!;)🤣
 
I have ditched three women for being boring.
The first bizarrely was massively intelligent, we were both about 18 and living together she had three A grade A levels which back in 1973 was a big deal, but we would go to the pub and say nothing to one another. She had no conversation at all and I ran out of things to say to her. (Imagine that for a few secs you lot!!!)
The second was a wee Welsh woman who was unbelievable in bed but boring as flip outside of it, again, she failed the convo in the pub test. But I was able to get rid of her easily as she got mad jealous if any woman she didn't know even looked at me, as if I was Arnie for flip's sake! So she did that once too often when we were staying with friends and embarrassed the flip out of me, so we got home and it was the perfect excuse to give her her marching orders.
The third well by that time I had a bit more practice in, spotted it quickly and ended it before it had really started. She was a bit bewildered but that was that.

Funny that in the end what makes a relationship can be something as simple as is she interesting/funny! But that combined with the other reasons...... well I'd have done exactly the same as you. Her feet were very nearly in concrete under your table so good on you for prying them out in time!!;)🤣
Three dead husbands as well, not good :D
 
I have ditched three women for being boring.
The first bizarrely was massively intelligent, we were both about 18 and living together she had three A grade A levels which back in 1973 was a big deal, but we would go to the pub and say nothing to one another. She had no conversation at all and I ran out of things to say to her. (Imagine that for a few secs you lot!!!)
The second was a wee Welsh woman who was unbelievable in bed but boring as flip outside of it, again, she failed the convo in the pub test. But I was able to get rid of her easily as she got mad jealous if any woman she didn't know even looked at me, as if I was Arnie for flip's sake! So she did that once too often when we were staying with friends and embarrassed the flip out of me, so we got home and it was the perfect excuse to give her her marching orders.
The third well by that time I had a bit more practice in, spotted it quickly and ended it before it had really started. She was a bit bewildered but that was that.

Funny that in the end what makes a relationship can be something as simple as is she interesting/funny! But that combined with the other reasons...... well I'd have done exactly the same as you. Her feet were very nearly in concrete under your table so good on you for prying them out in time!!;)🤣

Or she would be launched off the first Waverley boose cruise with her new boots. 🤣 🤣
 
Evening all, I got an emergency appointment at boots eye clinic today as I got a hot bit of metal in my eye, I say hot
I lit up the burning torch which burns at 3000 degrees & instantly something sparked up from the ground & had burnt
my eye I had my mask & my burning visor on normally you lite the the torch then get into position then put the visor down.

Nowt in it just a white burn mark on the eye & on my eye lid, still I went back to work & loaded the scrap skips with the cut up
steel the lads had left, they dont drive the grab machine only a select few have the privilege.

Drambuie now open & ive had a beer so cheers to you lot. :)
Very lucky it was OK. A freak spark.
 
On a normal day the batteries are full by 3 o clock that's with all sorts of appliances going we run two 3 klw inverters if a draw exceeds 6 klw the gen kicks in to compensate for the short fall 48 voltage system I think on average in the summer we get approx 30 klw hours more than enough for us the set up is now 20yrs old two batterie renewals in that time next it will be lithium the PV panels are original Semans made in Germany then not China all the inverters charge controllers and mate are Outback
That sounds like a good system, made properly and to last in those days. Never quite sure about all the cheaper Chinese made ones these days. During the day it's a good time to run things with surplus capacity available, requires a change of mindset compared with putting things on at night.
 

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