Shocking!

Fortunately no-one is hurt.

Jon is working very hard in the loft.  Day after day sees him adding more lambris to the walls, fitting it in between the beams.  We decided that, although this is more work and uses more wood, it was the best way to cope as the loft is so crooked that if we were to try and get flat walls we would end up with only half the space we have.  So poor Jon is up and down the ladder, sawing wood to fit each space individually.  The best thing we did was (accidentally) buy a nail gun which works by a hydraulic pump – it has been a real boon.

Last Friday he needed to move a lightswitch and we naturally turned off the electricity at the mains.  The switch was thrown, everything went quiet and Jon went back upstairs.

Ten seconds after throwing the switch all the lights came on in the house – none of the switches were on – things with timers beeped, the lights flashed and then went out again.

Frightening.

Luckily neither of us had been touching anything at the time or heaven knows what might have happened.

When we had calmed down a little Jon bravely continued doing what he had to do, but then the electricity kept tripping out every so often.

We went to check the pool and found that the heater was trying to run but the programmer was blank, obviously it has blown.  We have turned off the power to this area.

The electricity still kept tripping and I noticed that one of the laptops, which was connected to the mains, was trying to run on battery and was flickering.  We then discovered that both new laptops, which had been connected to the mains power at the time of the surge, have had their power supplies blown.

Since disconnecting them we have had no further power outings, so we believe we have located all the damaged items now.  Two new power supplies are on order but it is a real pain working with my very ancient and stroppy laptop at the moment.

We have to wait until later in the week until our pool guys can come out and see what damage has been caused to the pool heater, but hopefully it is only the programmer that has been damaged.  I have, of course, told the insurance company that we may well be making a claim.

We still have absolutely no idea what could have caused the surge.  It was very frightening, but of course, one could never replicate the phenomenon – nor would one want to!

Things are still going well in the loft and as soon as I can get back to a decent computer we’ll add some photos.