Hoping there might be a Sarky here who could give me some advice.
A few years ago our meter was moved. Turned out that we had a 4-core supply cable, with two wires shorted for each of Live and Neutral (to spread the load, rather than originally having installed a fatter cable, I presume).
At that time the fitter said he was not allowed to connect 4 wires, in the original way, any more, so he connected just two of them and two cores were left no-longer-used.
I had my Sparky run a before/after voltage-drop test with 3x 3KW fan heaters running, and he said the voltage drop (after the meter was moved) was significant (I've got the figures somewhere)
I told UK Power and they said if we could provide a suitable load they would put logging on the line, and if the voltage drop was unacceptable they would replace the cable (at their expensive, as I understood it) but, no, sorry they do not provide any form of test load whatsoever /... funny that!!
We have 5,000 Litres of hot water accumulator with 2x immersion heaters (19kW each, or something like that - if we ever needed to use them we would have to pretty much turn everything off in the house) so I figured to use them for a voltage-drop test. Long story short, at the time of the meter being moved the accumulator tank was being moved and the immersions heaters got lost in the process and have not therefore been fitted and therefore I have never had the opportunity to make a proper test
On Friday night the cable up the pole (it is underground from house-to-pole) blew up - rain and wind got into some weakness in the cable at the top of the pole. We had had flickering lights all day, so presume that was "some water" getting in, followed by "enough water" to create a proper short.
Linesman that fixed it said the cable was inadequate for a property of our size ...
... so I thought I'd check the Tesla logs for charging voltage, on the assumption that it is providing a "heavy load" when charging. They are showing around 235-237V when charging which, AFAIK, is within spec? (230V +10% -6%). So either Tesla is not a "big load" when charging, or I don't have a problem with voltage drop?
I have a dedicated tethered cable which I use to charge (sorry, very non-technical explanation of "I have no idea what sort of charger I have"!!), I also have a type-2 connector (which I have never used, it was intended for guest EVs to charge), but I suspect that is on the same circuit so wont provide any more/different load, so only mentioning it "just in case".
Any advice on whether I need to get the supply cable to the house upgraded, and if I should expect UK Power to pay, or not, would be appreciated. Many thanks for your help
A few years ago our meter was moved. Turned out that we had a 4-core supply cable, with two wires shorted for each of Live and Neutral (to spread the load, rather than originally having installed a fatter cable, I presume).
At that time the fitter said he was not allowed to connect 4 wires, in the original way, any more, so he connected just two of them and two cores were left no-longer-used.
I had my Sparky run a before/after voltage-drop test with 3x 3KW fan heaters running, and he said the voltage drop (after the meter was moved) was significant (I've got the figures somewhere)
I told UK Power and they said if we could provide a suitable load they would put logging on the line, and if the voltage drop was unacceptable they would replace the cable (at their expensive, as I understood it) but, no, sorry they do not provide any form of test load whatsoever /... funny that!!
We have 5,000 Litres of hot water accumulator with 2x immersion heaters (19kW each, or something like that - if we ever needed to use them we would have to pretty much turn everything off in the house) so I figured to use them for a voltage-drop test. Long story short, at the time of the meter being moved the accumulator tank was being moved and the immersions heaters got lost in the process and have not therefore been fitted and therefore I have never had the opportunity to make a proper test
On Friday night the cable up the pole (it is underground from house-to-pole) blew up - rain and wind got into some weakness in the cable at the top of the pole. We had had flickering lights all day, so presume that was "some water" getting in, followed by "enough water" to create a proper short.
Linesman that fixed it said the cable was inadequate for a property of our size ...
... so I thought I'd check the Tesla logs for charging voltage, on the assumption that it is providing a "heavy load" when charging. They are showing around 235-237V when charging which, AFAIK, is within spec? (230V +10% -6%). So either Tesla is not a "big load" when charging, or I don't have a problem with voltage drop?
I have a dedicated tethered cable which I use to charge (sorry, very non-technical explanation of "I have no idea what sort of charger I have"!!), I also have a type-2 connector (which I have never used, it was intended for guest EVs to charge), but I suspect that is on the same circuit so wont provide any more/different load, so only mentioning it "just in case".
Any advice on whether I need to get the supply cable to the house upgraded, and if I should expect UK Power to pay, or not, would be appreciated. Many thanks for your help