A strange thing went on last night. At around 10pm the power went off. Stuart looked at the consumer unit and all the switches were in the correct place. The Linky machine was ‘dead’ and the switch in the box to the right was in the up position. Stuart got in the car and drove round to see if there was any lights on in the village and around the area. It seemed that the power cut had affected others too. When he got back home for one second only the lights came on then went off and the Linky machine came on and showed some writing on it. We pressed the left hand button and it said that ‘energie indisponible’. So we had an early night - fortunately I can read my Kindle in the dark.
This morning we decided to call our neighbours to see if their power had been restored. They said they had not had a power cut. So we looked at the Linky machine again and is said power was available but still nothing was on. We turned the switch on the unit next to the Linky machine down then up and the power came on. We now have everything working. The freezer only had the alarm light on for 3-4 minutes and no food in that or the fridge has been ruined.
But the question remains - what was going on. Any ideas ?
Don’t know if it is the same but at my previous house, we often got cuts when others did not and it seemed the transformer nearest to us was the problem meaning all the rest of the village was still powered up. You used to be able to see a map online with EDF as to where any problems were and what they were
Its possible just a phase of the available 3 phase dropped out which is why neighbours were ok. They usually stagger the phases from the supply to even out distribution. Obviously the reason for the original drop is not known but probably distribution or a fault in your cable maybe.
We had the 3-phase taken out many years ago @Corona.
This is the unit to the right of the Linky machine that we put the switch down and then up as referred to in the last para of our posting. It seemed to ‘reset’ everything.
The fact that nothing ‘tripped’ on the consumer unit seems to be the mystery. This is a picture of the consumer unit in the working state and all of the switches were as they should be.
The other day, I spent most of my time trying to connect one of our Daikin air/air units to my local WiFi network. Despite following the manual to the letter and grilling AI, I could not reconnect it. I could operate it manually so it remained just an irritating problem.
That evening, for a period of 10 minutes, the mains power supply kept starting and stopping causing several reboots of computer and livebox.
Now the errant Daikin unit has reconnected and is functioning correctly. Sometimes power cuts are useful.
Yes but its still in the street to supply all the houses, they split off the 3 phase to supply houses with single phase. Your 2 other neighbours will be on the other 2 phases (in theory) and you on the 3rd. So you would have to ask alternate neighbours if they suffered an outage
We had a power cut this morning around 6am. So, torch in hand, I wandered to the far end of the house and peered out and up the street into blackness.
Yep, no glow from the Mairie building (where a light on the steps stays on all night)… so it’s not just me!
OH checked the position of whatever at the “mains”. Nope nothing in the OFF.
Several quick on/off flashes at the lights we’d especially put into the On position… then the power came back ON… to stay!!!
Switched every light off and went back to bed… zzzzzz
Calling Enedis is the best way to find out what’s going on. They can tell you remotely whether the outage affects the entire area or if it’s a Linky issue.
It’s true that, unfortunately, the French aren’t exactly known for their English skills… but with a few key words and a little Frenglish, I think Enedis should be able to help!
It’s odd, because Enedis manages almost the entire network. The emergency number in the event of a power cut is 09 72 67 50 XX, where XX stands for the department.
According to Enedis web page, when I put in our address is said
This geographical area is not managed by Enedis - We do not intervene in this town.
We invite you to consult your invoice to identify your electricity system operator.
Our electricity supplier is Seolis and I have got some numbers to call in an emergency but tomorrow, I will call the English speaking help line (08.30-17.30) to ask any questions we are not clear about.
And this afternoon following a tremendous thunder and lightning storm, the power went off but this time, the switch on the bottom row next to the blue square thingie (in the picture higher up on this posting) was in the down position. Stuart wasn’t at home but I was brave enough to put the switch into the up position and the power came back. This was the normal thing that happens when we have a power cut. Last night the Linky machine appeared to be ‘dead’ for a while. That’s the difference between last night (which was perhaps a one-off) and a normal power cut.
It’s 1744hrs and we’ve had 9.2mm rain. Yippee. But I think the storms have ended for today.
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