Middle class (re)volt

[hirez]

Well, that was a jolly way to spend a warm bank holiday Monday.

When I staggered downstairs at the crack of mid-morning, I noticed that the sockets in the kitchen had tripped out. Usually, it's the lighting circuit that has a fit when a bulb expires, but the sockets one has previous form (geezer. Isn't it.) when the kettle or toaster has exploded. So I reset the breaker and think no more about it.

Some minutes later, there's a bang and the breaker flips again.

Bugger. Was that coincidental with the fridge? It's aged, but not as aged as the freezer.

I unplug lots of things. Reset the breaker. Wait.

BANG.

This R nao SRS BSNS.

Faff some more. Resolutely don't think about the fun of finding a sparks on a bank holiday. Reset the breaker.

BANG. From the socket under the worktop that we never use because it was for the dishwasher and we are too skint green to keep one of those.

Oh, cock.

Grovel for insurance docs on the off-chance. Discover that they sold me emergency call-out cover. Things are now less worse, though I am filled with visions of some bugger going 'Werl guv, s'all facked innit. It'll all 'ave to come aht 'an the corlaht dun cuvver dat.' (Cock-er-knee sparks, obv.)

Nice man (you can tell it ends fairly well, can't you?) pitches up from his previous job in Weston (the poor sod), agrees that there is indeed a BANG from that socket when power is applied.

It turns out that when Bodgit & Scarper put that socket in, they nicked the insulation on the live side, and over time it's flexed enough to arc against the tinwork of the socket back.

So hurrah for circuit breakers and yarbles to everyone else involved. You knew where you were with gutta-percha, conduit and a lighting plant. Frequently in the dark.

I should point out that the house with the gutta-percha and conduit had moved on from a lighting plant by the time I lived there. Although a later domicile did feature a lighting plant that only I could make run. So if any of the other buggers wanted an early AM cuppa, they'd bang on my door until I went and cranked the Lister diesel over by hand.

Comments

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Sorry to chuckle at your misfortune, but this made me laugh. :)

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

Seems like, under the circumstances, you ought've been able to flip that breaker enough times to carbonize the metal that's contacting beyond conductivity.

That's the way my mom would've done it, anyway. Though not on purpose. Instead it would be; "honey, you know how I was having that problem with the fusebox? It sorted itself out!"

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Strangely our mystery RCD trip stopped suddenly the afternoon after the MEB-or-whatever-they're-called-now pitched up at the local substation with their PFX-striped tent.

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

I was tremendously disappointed to discover guttapercha wasn't a glue made from urchins.

Anyway, sparks are always a larf, innit?

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Or indeed, perch guts. It's clearly supposed to be a more rubbery sort of isinglass.