Now we have electricity

It's been a long wait, and expensive, but we now have an electricity supply to the new house. After a number of postponements caused by complications related to road-closing procedures, we had been told that work would start last Thursday. In the event, when we visited last Wednesday evening, it was to find that excavation work had started. The signage warned of a 4 day road-closing period, and so it worked out. This first stage of excavation took the trench round from our neighbours' entrance to their side gate, allowing them access in and out.




On Thursday morning I decided to go and spend a few hours watching what was happening. By half past eight there were lots of vehicles and four different work groups in action. One chap was buzzing around in a traffic management lorry, busily moving signs, cones and barriers as the workplace changed. A pair of workers from O'Connor Utilities (sub-contracted by Scottish Power Energy Networks, the installer) were trenching, a grab lorry and two other blokes were on hand to remove spoil and cover the ducting with sand, followed by crushed stone; and the last group of three with a small lorry and another large one containing tarmac were there to do the re-surfacing of the filled trench.

The first phase of work for the day involved trenching past the entrance to our and our neighbours' drives. The line of the trench-to-be was first cut with a diamond disc machine, then the digger pecked away at the hard surface below before removing about 600mm of soil. A four inch red conduit was then laid. At this point, gang two took over with their grab lorry, loading the spoil before blinding the conduit with sand, laying a warning tape and then almost filling the trench with crushed stone. This was then compacted with a jumping wacker plate. They moved off, and the tarmac team moved in, filling wheelbarrows from their big truck and laying and compacting the first layer of the black stuff, then adding layer two, more compacting (by wacker plate and roller) before finishing with a banding solution poured through an applicator to seal the line between old and new. A new broken white line to mark the junction was then burned on.










By now the trenching duo had moved on to section two, round the corner, and before long they had exposed the cable where the joint was to be made. This was the end of their work, and they tidied up and left, predicting that the Scottish Power engineers might not attend to make the actual connection until Monday.

However, when Liz and I arrived again on Friday lunchtime on our way to Maddy's, the cable was in to the box on our wall, one joint was made at the edge of our plot, and the engineers were in the trench splicing the final connection to the road cable, wearing splendid rubber gauntlets (as the job is done with the cable live). We were happy to sign their customer satisfaction form.




And, very efficiently given the many phases of the job and different work gangs involved, the second part of the trench was re-filled and tarmac laid yesterday, bringing to an end within the four days advertised the diversions around the village. 


We now have an appointment on Monday for the electricity supply company (as opposed to the network provision company) to fit our meter in the cabinet, and then we will be able to boil a kettle.

Here's the postscript from Monday:

A final example of the efficiency of these organisations when things go well - I headed over to the plot for 8am for our 8-12 appointment for Octopus to come to fit the meter. I had already been impressed by their cheerful willingness to cope with a number of postponements caused by the problems with SPEN and the council, so it was a pleasure but no surprise when I got a call at 8.05 to say Rich would be with me within the hour.  He arrived 40 minutes later, cheerfully fitted the smart meter and a master switch, produced a pair of hinge pins to sort out the fact that they were missing from the cabinet door, and explained everything he'd done to me clearly and without condescension. Half an hour later we were done. He even paired the display panel and gave it to me to keep safe until the time comes to occupy the house.










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