Are we powerless

2016 TURNING INTO A VERY BAD YEAR FOR POWER CUTS

Rural living has always meant that main services can be less reliable than in a city but we do seem to suffer more than most from power reliability issues. Whoever you pay for your electricity it's the company UK Power Networks who own and maintain the power lines across London, the East and the South Eastern parts of England. Because of the age of their network, UK Power can easily "miss" smaller power outages and until or unless at least two customers contact them to say that their power has gone off they will not despatch engineers with any sort of priority. Do PLEASE bear this in mind when your lights go off - or even just go dim - and REPORT IT for your and all our sakes. To report you should telephone on 0800 31 63 105.

For historical reasons Horsted Keynes gets its power supply via 11,000 Volt overhead cables which converge from different directions, roughly splitting the village in half - south west and north east down the centre of the road. There is the "Haywards Heath" line and the "West Hoathly / Forest Row" line. The two pubs are on different supplies so are seldom off at the same time, meaning a bonanza for one whilst the other has candlelight. As a youth your webmaster provided a mobile disco in the Crown Inn during a long power outage, that was 50 years ago so our problems are not new! We used car batteries by the way!

In our opinion the entire local power infrastructure is old and requires complete overhaul. A journey to other parts of the UK shows many new lines, new poles and general investment, while a look at the other companies power cut maps seems to prove that even in Scotland and Wales power issues are far less common..

2016 certainly seems to be an unlucky year for us - in the "Haywards Heath" supply sector of the village anyway, as we have now had 10 proper power cuts and numerous power outages - that's when the electricity supply suddenly drops out for a few seconds - just enough to crash a computer or Sky box. We have had a dozen of these so far this year!

We wonder why neighbours do not get together and install some medium sized generators to spread the cost of providing enough power to run the lights and heating - not to mention the fridge and freezers of course! It's true that the small £300 generators will run a fridge but because of their lack of stability can't really be expected to power your computer or TV without the risk of long term damage.

Below we record a list of the more important power events in Horsted Keynes this year. We at HorstedKeynes.com think it's time for the Parish Council to make a formal complaint to UK Power Networks.

8th July and it's time for flickering!

Just north of the village the power went off again today but the village itself just had flickering power that went off enough to cause computers and TV boxes to reset - Oh dear! I know we are not counting any more, but this seems to be number 18 this year!

6th July and power goes off for 5 hours - then again after dark!

The 6th of July will go down as another day that UK Power Networks cannot be proud of. Lights went off at 3.45p.m. and we wer encouraged to be told that all would be well be 6 p.m.. Well we knew better, as did the engineers on the grouud who confided that there was no chance whatsoever that power would be back be then. In fact we had to wait until almost 8 p.m. before the power came back and even then the lights went out again just before the end of an importa t football match at 9.45 p.m. when we were thrown into darkness for 5 minutes. It feels like it's time to stop counting the power cuts as they are just so numerous this seems pointless!

22nd June and the power goes off three times due to "vermin" - that's 13 cuts this year!

When we reported the power was off at lunchtime we were rapidly told that this was due to wind blowing branches onto the power lines; trouble is there has been absolutely no wind today, it's still and humid. "Ah", we were told it's vermin then! Must be pretty enormous rats around here!

"Phone us back in 24 hours and we will see if we have learnt anything about the cause."

You can't get through to UK Power Networks, they have stand by generators so they're ok.

2016 Power Cut No. 10 - 6th May - 6 hours

It's 50 years old but it works so why should UK Power Networks bother to replace it? Simple, old parts have a habit of going wrong when they get warm so on the warmest afternoon so far this year a junction box quite literally blew itself apart causing a 6 hour power cut over more than 560 homes in and around Horsted Keynes.

Silhouetted against the dusk, and while the village waits to cook its dinner, a UK Power Networks linesman works to disconnect the faulty 11,000 Volt connection box. The job was finally completed with a very modern design that might have come from the set of Dr.Who on the 11 May and we now have an extra 10 volts in our office! By the way this pole is at least 50 years old and made really dreadful creaking sounds when the linesman was pulling on it - another possible, and dangerous, fault for the future?

2016 Power Cut No. 9 - 27 March - 14 hours

Now this really IS beyond a joke, and you may gather that your webmasters are very annoyed at this time sorry, but just look at the dates of all the incidents this year. Less than 24 hours after an evening with no less than 9 power outages the village found itself completely without electricity for no less than 14 hours! The problem is that we were again unable to report the fault correctly for more than 9 hours - just as happened in December 2013!

OK it was storm Katie that caused the problems this time but UK Power Networks seemed completely overwhelmed and more important badly informed as they would not be told that some parts of the village gets its power from a different direction. This meant that they kept telling us that our power would be restored when a fault near East Grinstead had been fixed - from experience we knew that this is wrong! It does seem their "system" is to look at their map and if there is a power cut in the general area then lump all the faults together. This makes it impossible to explain that our fault may be from a different cause.

So we had to sit in the dark for 9 hours and when the power was eventually restored to the north eastern part of the village we had a tough job convincing them that we were still off supply.

"Have you checked your trip switch? Have you asked your neighbours?" were the questions that dozens of residents were faced with when they rang in again to report to UK Power Networks that they had been without power since 2 am! Once the "new" fault was recognised it was fixed in a few hours. The trouble is all our food spoilt with the extra delay. Any chance of some compensation for their mistake, or is that a joke?

For UK Power networks information all of Sugar Lane, most of Lewes Road and part of Station Road, plus 28 homes in Rixon's Close ALL get their power from a spur off the 11,000 Volt line that runs across the fields from the Haywards Heath direction! Try telling them that when the lights go off though!

Whilst there is a handy map on line showing all power cuts in south east England, the Horsted Keynes one never showed up on this system - another cause for complaint.

This does need investigating properly and sorting out once and for all!

2016 Power Cut No. 8 - 26 March - all evening

It really is getting beyond a joke! No less than 9 power outages in one evening when there was a problem with the high voltage network near Crawley. Once again this affected one half of the village while the other found its computers constantly crashing.

2016 Power Cut Nos. 6 & 7 - 19 March - 2 x 10 minutes

Two more power cuts on Saturday when the electricity went off for 10 minutes and then another 10 minutes a half hour later! Just long enough to let villagers restart their computers. Yes it certainly is turning into a poor year for power in Horsted Keynes.

We don't get a penny for saying this, but we have just purchased this UPS, that's an uninterruptible power supply which turns on a battery supply if the mains fails - it seems quite good value. The Amazon link is... http://amzn.to/25bwskA If you are going to get one we recommend the high power version for a few pounds extra.

2016 Power Cut No. 5 - 6th. February - up to 5 hours

We had thought that with the re-engineering of local power networks the regular village power cuts were a thing of the past - it seems not so! Last evening and just one week later than the first, another power cut affected much of the southern part of the village, some for a few minutes, others for several hours.

Last time the extended low voltage damaged some motorised appliances - this time at least one computer bit the dust. It's getting expensive living in the country!

How long will it be before all homes have a built in battery back up for their important equipment?

LOW VOLTAGE "EVENT" WRITES OFF VILLAGE 'FRIDGES, FREEZERS AND EVEN BOILER PUMPS!

2016 Power Cut Nos. 1 to 4 - 2nd to 31st. January

What UK Power Networks called a "low voltage event" when the power to 609 local homes was reduced to 80 Volts caused damage to several items. Our area has a reputation for having unreliable power supplies but these usually take the form of the lights going off completely. Unfortunately this time the volts just dropped to an extremely low level which was not obvious to villagers who use modern LED bulbs which will run quite happily on such low voltages.

As it was not immediately obvious that there was a problem many villagers did not take precautions so fridges, freezers and other motorised appliances including in one case a boiler pump ran at far too low a speed or would not start at all. This made them severely overheat requiring replacement.

The letter from UK Power networks is perfectly clear, it's not their fault if their equipment breaks down and we should all insure for such an eventuality as they will not hold themselves responsible! So local electrical shops had a field day.

Beware, and check your insurance policies.

UPDATE - Tuesday 2nd. February More than 2 days after power restored just received automated phone call from UK Power Networks saying it is now ok to reconnect equipment! So we can plug the 'fridge back in then, let's hope the milk is still drinkable!

EVERY HOUSE IN THE VILLAGE ENTITLED TO A MINUMUM OF £75 COMPENSATION

Map of Sussex power cuts at height of the storm

It has been announced to Parliament by Basil Scarsella the chairman of UKPowerNetworks today that as long as your electricity went off at some time on Christmas Day - and we understand this includes the entire village - you are entitled to a payment of at least £75 compensation.

All you need to do is telephone UKPowerNetworks on 0800 783 8866 and give them your Post Code. In most cases they will complete the application on line and will send you a cheque within 10 working days, it's as simple as that!

If you would prefer there is now an on line form to complete, it can be found here, although some have found that telephoning is the better method.
http://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/internet/en/power-cuts/claim-compensation-form/

Please note the on line form implies that you have to have been without power for over 48 hours. This is NOT correct. As long as you were without power for any period on Christmas Day then the £75 WILL be paid "as a gesture of good will", but you have to CLAIM!

Can we also remind residents that some areas of the village experienced low voltages for a much longer period - in our case for 6 days - this can lead to a payment exceeding £400! To claim the enhanced payment you need to advise UKPowerNetworks that you were on a voltage below the legal minimum (which is 216Volts) for an extended period. We were on 180Volts which caused our fridge and freezer to run slowly, resulting in excess power costs and caused damage to our computer systems. The low voltage may also have caused yet unseen long term effects.

You receive your compensation from UKPowerNetworks WHOEVER you pay your electricity bill to. So why not claim?

You could always donate the money to charity!

Basil Scarsella received remuneration of £1.7 Million, and its owners took almost £150 Million last year so nobody need feel too bad about applying!

WORST POWER OUTAGE FOR 26 YEARS AFFECTS HORSTED KEYNES VILLAGERS OVER CHRISTMAS

Updated 31st December 2013

A garden trampoline blown onto power cables in Ketches Lane. A solitary engineer was roistered to deal with this incident, driving his own car and armed with just a screwdriver and some boltcutters!

We are sorry that this news update has taken so long to arrive on the internet but like most other villagers we have been without mains power over the Christmas period.

Many villagers without home generators were forced to throw their Christmas food away as the outages went on for more than 48 hours in some instances. One villager complained that the electricity kept coming and going which meant food that was partially cooked had to be thrown away too.

We do want to make one comment. That is that very, very few villagers bothered to telephone UK Power Networks 0800 783 8866 to tell them that their power was off especially when it went off for a second time. Now the way that their repair work is prioritised is that outages covering the largest number of homes are dealt with first.

Your webmasters were the only people in our road to bother to report when the power went off for a second time (caused by a completely different fault) which meant that in our corner of the village power was not restored until Christmas Day afternoon. Had others reported it we are told that we WOULD have been reconnected earlier. Please bear this in mind, next time!

We have to add that one of the casualties of the power cut was the computer that had faithfully uploaded our web camera and weather forecast reports. This has had to be replaced together with the uninterruptible power supply unit. We will try to keep this new unit on line but only the weather, and UK Power Networks can tell for how long that will be!

December 31st

We have noticed that our lights have been dim since Christmas Day and first reported the fact to UK Power Networks late on Christmas afternoon. Since them we have telephoned several times to little effect. This afternoon, after we formally reported the fault again yesterday, the voltage suddenly dropped, to a little over 170 Volts, which instantly blew the power supply on our server computer, this despite it being connected through an uninterruptible power supply.

Yet another server power supply is on order, in the mean time we are using an old laptop which can only be switched on for a half hour at a time. So since Christmas we have had to obtain a new computer server, a new uninterruptible power supply and just now order yet another computer power supply!

It's all getting rather expensive and a little beyond a joke!

OCTOBER 5 HOUR OUTAGE

Off we went again - and this time it was frightening! At about 05-45 on the morning of 5th October 2009 the house was woken by a very loud banging noise from our meter. Everything in the house was flashing on and off and the noise was frightening! So for the first time in ages we turned the electricity off at the mains.

When we reconnected we found that the old fashioned lights were glowing dimly but the energy saving bulbs were off. Our supply was running at 68Volts against our normal 225Volts. It went on like this for nearly 5 hours until supplies were restored.

The only casualty was the internet modem which died and we had to buy a replacement. Nothing whatsoever from EDF energy of course as it is obviously OUR FAULT that we left our broadband connected!

This really has to stop. you don't get things blowing up in the town so why should we put up with it?

ARE WE POWERLESS?

Horsted Keynes gets its electricity supply from two directions roughly split across the line of the green. Those of us to the South have had 12 power cuts in the last year, the shortest lasting 30 minutes, the longest lasting 8 hours. On Boxing Day we were without power for three and a half hours and then on December 30th many of us had low or no voltage again, this time for much of the afternoon. Things fared a little better until the 19th September last year when many villagers had to throw their Sunday lunch into the bin when the power went off for 4 hours.

The situation in the Northern half of the village is for some reason slightly better but even so the old peoples housing Westall House have given in and installed a huge standby generator in their garden!

Obviously as we live in the country our power has to come across the fields on wires fixed to poles rather than under the ground, but we are sure that our record of power cuts is way above average. If you, like us, are fed up with the service that EDF Energy (the new name for Seeboard but really standing for the new owners who are - Electricity De France) give please get in touch.

We are surprised that EDF Energy have not arranged to feed the whole village from EITHER supply line. As both power supply directions are seldom cut off at the same time this would solve our problems at a stroke. If you have kept an accurate record of power cuts in the village we would be pleased to publish it here.

Please get in touch at webmaster-at-horstedkeynes.com . Perhaps a "class action" could be arranged; is there a lawyer in the village?

ps. Seems that we are not alone. Well known song writer and Sussex resident Richard Stilgoe bemoaned the service that he was getting from EDF Energy on a recent edition of Countdown on Channel 4. Surely in the Twenty First Century something can be done. Back-up generators at centres of population perhaps? Nah, thought not ;-)

You can find more electricity information including emergency telephone numbers on our information page.