Back to the future

The electricity connection to the plot has at last been moved from the grungelow to the strawbale. Co-ordinating all the parties involved was stressful, not without incident (worst of which was OVO cancelling the meter move with <48 hours notice) and involved us living without power for a few days. Some folks were horrified with us being without electricity for an extended period but having lived through the blackouts when we were growing up during the 1970's we had coping strategies (candles, torches, flasks, camping stove, freezer packed out with bottles of frozen water etc.). Fortunately it wasn't cold and there was no having to do homework by candle light this time around!

In preparation for the move Mark dug a trench, to S.S.E.'s specification, from the existing underground service to the strawbale and fixed a meter box to the wall. The white pipe you can see in the photo below is a 'hockey stick'. It protects the cable between the ground and the box.

S.S.E. severed our existing service to the bungalow and extended the underground service cable to the new meter box.

Next OVO, our energy supplier, moved the electricity meter from the bungalow to the meter box, connected it to the service cable and installed an isolation switch.

Finally Stuart, our electrician, connected the meter to the consumer unit inside the strawbale, ran a cable from the new consumer unit to the old one in the grungelow (thus restoring the electricity supply, yay) and put in a temporary double electric socket negating the need for us to run extension leads from the grungelow to the strawbale to power tools etc.

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