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Woke up this morning, and tried to switch coffee machine on and completely dead, thought it must just be that machine, but then tried to switch TV on, and again it is completely dead.
Tried to the main consumer board switch for that ring, and that is fine, and smaller appliances seem fine, just both the TV and coffee machine that have gone?
Tried changing fuse in both, but nothing.
Live in rural Norfolk, where power is less than reliable, would it be a surge that potentially caused this?
What can be done?
Do you have a kettle and a cafetiere?
was there any thunderstorms knocking around last night ?
Contact your DNO. If you're a domestic customer and the damage is the result of a neutral fault, you may be in with a chance.
They should know if it was a neutral fault and you're unlikely to be the only one suffering damage.
3#x DNO repairs engineer (but not for Norfolk)
Check the power network site, in outer Cambridge (CB4) at work yesterday we had a blip that seemed more surge than outage (mid afternoon though). There were storms earlier in the week, but presumably you have used the TV and coffee machine since then?
We have heavy rain and sleet today, and hailstorms yesterday, but not seen lightning...
TV and coffee machine both working fine last night, just woke up to neither working this morning, thankfully work laptop etc are OK.
Won't help now but get a surge protection device fitted to your consumer unit. You can get single module versions now so there's usually space.
Won’t help now but get a surge protection device fitted to your consumer unit. You can get single module versions now so there’s usually space.
To be honest, the consumer unit it a year old, i did all the wiring etc and fitted a new kitchen, but got electrician to fit the consumer board, which i thought had surge protection and to sign off my handiwork.
If it was only put in a year ago it should have surge protection fitted as per amendment 2. Have you looked to see if there’s an SPD in the board, and whether the little windows are still showing a green flag?
We had a power surge a few months ago that fried things in 8 houses. UK Power Network were great in attending the area that day and explained the process to claim for any damage/labour to put things right. They wanted us to get a quote and send it to them before getting the work done but when we explained it was our waste water pump which meant no toilets etc and had to stay in a local b&b, they said just get the work done and also claim for the night in the b&b. They covered the lot.
If it was only put in a year ago it should have surge protection fitted as per amendment 2. Have you looked to see if there’s an SPD in the board, and whether the little windows are still showing a green flag?
Strange, checked the SPD and flags are green. Just presumed it must be a surge, odd that two appliances have bot just gone like that overnight.
One took out my digibox, amp and plasma TV circuits. I think it was via a satellite box. Was an insurance claim. I still miss that Pioneer Kuro 42" screen. I bet the guy who took it away still has it, as all it needed was a new HDMI circuit 🙁
If it was a recent rewire I would just check to see if the 2 sockets that the TV and coffee machine are on are on the circuits that you expect.
This is based on my experience in a house whose previous owner was "a bit of a dab hand with electrics".
Also, my coffee machine has an internal fuse. Maybe yours has too, and TV.
If it was a recent rewire I would just check to see if the 2 sockets that the TV and coffee machine are on are on the circuits that you expect.
This is based on my experience in a house whose previous owner was “a bit of a dab hand with electrics”.
I did the rewire as it knocked lounge and kitchen into one, but had all my work signed off by an electrician. The "new" part of the house's sockets are all on one single ring, so i could have rest of houses electrics working. But the sockets are fine, turntable, amp, Sky box all work fine, just seems to have taken TV and coffee machine from what i can work out...
Beginning to decaffeinate and i don't like it....
Aeropress to the rescue?
I had a weird fault years ago that took out my kitchenaid artisan coffee bean grinder, the lights in the house were really dim and pulsing but I foolishly switched on my grinder and the motor gave a funny noise then a bang with sparks followed by a pile of smoke pouring out.
Naturally I blamed it on aliens and bought a sage grinder and new sage espresso machine to cheer myself up
As above, strange that it has taken out TV and coffee machine but everything else OK, placed something on Facebook for village, and someone else reported TV shot too, but surge protector on consumer board seems ok (mine was a Sage Barista machine, bought second hand, but been really good...)
That post above where the grinder went bang because of low voltage reminds me of the bloke on The Repair Shop who "mends" old radios. I'm sure everyone who's done electrics shouts at the telly when he's on, but the worst thing I've seen is when he says he doesn't want to plug something straight into the mains as it hasn't been used in years so he has a device that will gradually increase the voltage.
Unhelpful to the OP I know but,
The best/worst one I had to deal with was at an office where an electrician accidentally dropped a spanner into some 3-phase distribution box or other. It blew pretty much every electrical device in the building. Two of us spent days on site just replacing PC power supplies. Quite literally 'a spanner in the works.'
That was the one, my colleague was crawling around under a desk, switched on a PC to see if had survived and it went "bang" in a big loud voice next to his ear. He said a naughty word and came out looking like a cartoon character with tweety birds circling their head. He staggered to an adjacent desk, crawled under it and the next PC did exactly the same in his other ear. He had to go for a sit down. So did I, I was laughing that hard my legs had gone.
We've had lightning take out all the garden lights power supplies. Just had to buy a couple of new 12v PSUs and install those.
I had the complete opposite recently. We had a "low voltage" issue which caused most appliances to stop working but some continued to work. The microwave, for example, worked but the turntable turned verrrry slowly (was advised to try this by Northern Powergrid). It lasted for about 30 mins and during that time it caused some very bizarre behaviour in certain appliances. But it buggered up my router's power supply - not sure how and might have been a coincidence but seems odd it failed at the same time. Unless there was a power surge when supply was restored but nothing tripped on the fuse box.
When was your electrics tested?
I'd be checking your main earth.
Also if I lived rurally/semi rural and had an overhead electrical supply, I'd have surge (SPD) protection fitted at the mains.