Electric Stress

The other day Jane woke up in the middle and the night and noticed the electricity was off. She had the presence of mind to set her mobile phone alarm before getting back into bed.

The first I knew about it was when I was woken by the shrill sound of the phone instead of dulcet tones of the 5 Live radio presenter telling us it was 6 o’clock and time for the daily news and sport.

I used the torch on Jane’s phone to find my way to the fuse box under the stairs while she searched for the camping lantern. I thought I was going to have to move the shoe rack but it turned out I could see the fuse boxes without. The earth leakage had tripped.

It wouldn’t come back on, so I turned off the two fuse boxes (the house and the shed) and tried to get the supply back on before turning each fuse box back on. However, it still wouldn’t come back on.

I then had the bright idea that turning off the fuse boxes only isolated the live wire, leaving the earths connected, so if we had an earth leak it could still leak. I pulled out nearly every plug in the house to overcome this but still no joy.

In hindsight this sounds stupid, if you don’t put water into a pipe then it won’t leak even if all the drains are connected to each other.

There was nothing for it but to ring British Gas and arrange for an emergency electrician to come out. But their idea of an emergency is between 8am and 12 – it was still 6:30.

The parting comment of the nice man on the phone was to warn us to be careful in the dark. I told him we had the camping lantern and he was impressed. He said he wouldn’t be able to find his, especially in the dark. I told him that my wife was here so there was no problem. It reminds me that Jack’s friend has a saying “If your mum can’t find it then it’s really lost”.

Waiting for the electrician was when the stress kicked in. I can’t help stressing over things that I have no control over. Like when the Internet has gone off, the car isn’t working or a visitor hasn’t arrived on time.

I had to give a presentation at work so we decided that Jane would stay at home and wait for the electrician and I would go to work early to take my mind off the wait. We briefly considered getting Jane’s laptop from work first but realised that without Wi-Fi it wouldn’t be of much use.

I did my best to take my mind off of things at work and hoped that nobody noticed that I hadn’t had a shave – didn’t relish the idea of doing it in the dark.

It was 11:30 when the electrician finally came. Jane was starting to get cold before then but was at least able to boil some water on the gas stove for a hot cup of tea.

The first thing the electrician did was move the shoe rack to discover that there was a third fuse box. He turned off all three and the electric supply came back on. Only when he turned the third fuse box back on did it trip again. That third fuse box was for the shed – still no idea what one of the other two is for.

In the shed there are three fuses and he discovered that if he removed one of those then the electric would stay on. Interestingly the ring main and the lighting main in the shed are working, so we all wondered what the third fuse was isolating. When Jack came home from work he guessed it was the shaver point.

At work the following day a few people said “who still has a shaver point” but what they should have been asking was “who has a shaver point in their shed!”

The following morning when I got up I couldn’t help thinking about how much electric I use before going to work:

The central heating comes on at 5am so that it’s nice and warm when we get up at 6 when the radio alarm clock comes on.

I turn on the light over the mirror in the bathroom to avoid the noisy extractor fan coming on with the main light when I’m still half asleep.

Our on-suite is on the 2^nd floor where there is no water pressure so we need an electric pump to run the hot water.

When I return into the bedroom my night vision has gone so I turn the bedroom light on to see to get dressed.

Next is the upstairs landing light. When I get to the downstairs landing I don’t need to put that light on, I can see enough if I put the hall light on downstairs instead.

Then I need the dining room light to see to get to the kitchen and then the kitchen light.

Once there I can make a drink using the electric kettle and fill the bread machine. Before going into the living room where I put the living room light on to see to read my book for an hour before going to work when my electric clock tells me it is 8am.

That’s a grand total of 13 items just before going to work. I’m trying to avoid itemising what I use when I get home.

There is a silver lining to this story. Before the electric went off the clock on the microwave was missing some LCD cells on the left which meant when the timer was on you couldn’t tell if it was saying 13 or 3 minutes. Now it seems to be working perfectly.