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Electric Shock


Hecateh

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I have just received a quotation from Northern Power Grid for the electricity supply.

My house, in the garden of my current house, is at the end of a small cul de sac and will be the 5th property - others having been built many years ago.  

As there are houses just the other side of the road from me, using NPGs calculator my estimated costs were between 1 and 2 k depending which side of the road the electricity supply was on.  

 

The quote is for over £8600 - Not connecting to existing supply but running a whole new supply down the road.  Another 6.5k to add to the bill

 

Ouch ouch ouch

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Can you get to speak to the surveyor that made up the quote.

 

It could be the existing cable is at full capacity?

 

Or did you tick the wrong box and and ask for 3 phase, or an unusually high capacity supply?  (I was "offered" a 12KVA supply and chose to accept that, as I just knew if I wanted more I would be hit with a cost for upgrading the local transformer)

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2 hours ago, ProDave said:

Can you get to speak to the surveyor that made up the quote.

I will call them tomorrow - think I might have been a bit too 'emotional' to tackle that today

Quote

It could be the existing cable is at full capacity?

Could be - My current house (where the supply comes from the other side)  was built in 1951
The 2 bungalows inline with my new one - were built in the early 70's

and the house across from me was built in the 80's

Quote

Or did you tick the wrong box and and ask for 3 phase, or an unusually high capacity supply?  (I was "offered" a 12KVA supply and chose to accept that, as I just knew if I wanted more I would be hit with a cost for upgrading the local transformer)

I don't think I ticked the wrong box


"Thank you for asking us to produce a quotation for a new supply at the Property.
In line with your request, we will provide you with a new low voltage (230 Volt) connection to our electricity distribution system (the “Distribution System”), full details of which are included in this Quotation.
Works Required:
 Install a low voltage mains cable to your site
 Install a service cable to your meter position
 Install equipment suitable for connecting the meter"

 

I am going to ask about it but I think it is going to be just another thing and I'll just have to live with AAaaaarrrrggggghhhh - another reason why @epsilonGreedy may need to have a few more thinks.  If you haven't got a load of 'contingency' you really could end up in the stew.  I have already gone 25% above my (admittedly tight) budget.  Luckily it is not at deal breaker level - just reducing the retirement pot. Although if things carry on in the same way I will be selling the new build and moving into the bog standard, housing estate property 

 

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Eek! That sure is a nasty surprise.  Very little seems to be cheap once a DNO is involved.  The electricity supply to our plot comes in on an overhead cable that we will have buried and ballpark figures for that aren't cheap at all.

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39 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

[...]

The quote is for over £8600 - Not connecting to existing supply but running a whole new supply down the road.  Another 6.5k to add to the bill

[...]

 

Hold on a mo  @Hecateh, why aren't they connecting to the existing supply? By that I mean, the supply that connects the bungalow? (if I have read your diagram correctly)

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I am no expert here, in fact know very little.  But I often read about 'contestable' work.  As I understand it, these are bits you can do yourself, or at least organise a suitably qualified person to do it for you.

I am sure other know more about all this.

 

On a similar note, how about water and sewage/drainage?

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Ask them why...seems a lot of money. Ours was a similar scenario at the end of a cul de sac cost us about £1k but we dug all the trenches bar the last metre as we were running down a private drive so even adding the cost of doing that it wasnt bad.. If its adopted/highways they wont let you do your own trenches

 

Our gas cost us over £10k though but we wanted mains gas not ashp - the gas was closer than the electricity but we had a nightmare with the company, we changed gas suppliers from Nat Grid to Adroit as there were two in the area with supply pipes and we got a better deal with Adroit about £2k cheaper again we did do most of our own trenching. Ditto on water - the water hydrant to connect is within feet of the gas and electricity but it still cost us £4k with digging our own trenches bar the last bit and it took nearly 18 months to get connected. Cost us £12k to get into the mains sewers again we did all the work they just approved it.

 

Our plot is part of a garden of a house that is 200+ years old and on the edge of the residential streets so not exactly isolated.

 

With our own groundworks on trenches etc and all the fees I think its cost us about 30k, massive part of our over budget spend.

 

They are complete rip off merchants all of them.

Edited by lizzie
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I’m not sure if it’s possible but it may be that you could get someone else to dig the necessary trench and backfill apply for road closure etc if so that will save you a few grand, obvs first choice is to check why they can’t connect to the existing cable but as already mentioned it may be at capacity.

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6 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

Hold on a mo  @Hecateh, why aren't they connecting to the existing supply? By that I mean, the supply that connects the bungalow? (if I have read your diagram correctly)

I was wondering if they could link into that.  It's one of the things I want to check.  The application asked me to say where I wanted the supply to come in and I put by the drive as they is where other services are coming in.  I suspected, but didn't know for sure where my bungalow supply came from - the meter is on that side - and now feel I should have asked to talk to someone first.  I didn't ask for maps (duh)

 

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11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I am no expert here, in fact know very little.  But I often read about 'contestable' work.  As I understand it, these are bits you can do yourself, or at least organise a suitably qualified person to do it for you.

I am sure other know more about all this.

My builder is doing all the work on my land.  The rest - apparently there are over 200 companies that are licensed to do the highway work, I'm going to look into it BUT if they have to dig up the whole road then I doubt anyone will be much cheaper

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

On a similar note, how about water and sewage/drainage?

Water - the main is about 1 metre from my drive but not yet received quote

Gas is brilliant - connection is 2 m from my property - quote about £1200 with a 'discount' (No idea what or why) bring it down to £350 ish

Sewers - no work for them as the Public Sewer is on my land so they just have to 'check' it 

 

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2 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

IS there another possible connection point the other side of the new plot, this may be cheaper if closer, although I would have thought the surveyor would have spotted that one.

That's a question I am going to pursue.  I put entry at the drive on the application but it doesn't have to be.  
Would involve extra work (and money) for my builders but not 8k

 

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Looking at that plan there is a supply to the bungalow to the left of the plot. The join is in the neighbours garden so as long as that cable has enough capacity it’s all in your own property currently. 

 

I would ask for an alternate connection from that and see where they go. 

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50 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

And while I think like of it @Hecateh, try and  arrange for a safe temporary  electricity supply from your house for the duration of the build. Doing that takes the pressure off getting the main supply to the new house.....

Can easily run an extension from the garage - on its own spur - or do I need more than this?

 

@recoveringacademic @MikeSharp01 @PeterW this was SO what I was hoping to hear.  It was my thought but, as I thought we were only a metre or so from supply at the drive side, didn't put forward on my application.  
The supply that feeds my current place and next door though was laid in about 1959 - is this likely to still be a suitable feed?

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1 minute ago, Hecateh said:

Can easily run an extension from the garage - on its own spur - or do I need more than this?

 

@recoveringacademic @MikeSharp01 @PeterW this was SO what I was hoping to hear.  It was my thought but, as I thought we were only a metre or so from supply at the drive side, didn't put forward on my application.  
The supply that feeds my current place and next door though was laid in about 1959 - is this likely to still be a suitable feed?

 

If the supply isn’t suitable they have to replace it under their own regs as it’s “unsafe” and it’s their problem ..!

 

I’ll see if I can get the supply map for the other side tomorrow - should show what it is. 

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2 minutes ago, PeterW said:

 

If the supply isn’t suitable they have to replace it under their own regs as it’s “unsafe” and it’s their problem ..!

 

I’ll see if I can get the supply map for the other side tomorrow - should show what it is. 

 

 

That's just brilliant - Thank you, Thank you, Thankyou - I'm quite happy to fight for something so long as I know I have 'mi ducks in a row' as regards facts and back up AND that is so difficult when I have 'thoughts' but no knowledge

 

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We have a similar shock with our connection. Had a pole on our land but was too far from the transformer to support another property. Had to go 220 meters back across a road, through some trees and a minefield of solid bedrock.

 

Managed to get our quote down from around £8k by going through all the possibilities with quoter, using our own contractor for the trench work and we also managed to get a grant. Came down to £5.4k.

 

Might be worth asking somebody from the Electricity supplier to come out and meet you and see if they can see a more obvious solution?

Edited by Thedreamer
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14 minutes ago, Thedreamer said:

Might be worth asking somebody from the Electricity supplier to come out and meet you and see if they can see a more obvious solution?

 

Thank you, I think that is what I am going to do

 

8K for what needed doing for you sounds very reasonable compared to mine lol

Edited by Hecateh
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Your problem is the amount of road to dig up, very expensive (I paid £1K just for the road crossing across a 3 metre wide single track road)

 

You need to find out WHY they need to run the cable so far. If it is capacity issues ask just what rating supply they can give you from the existing infrastructure. It's not a matter of the condition od the existing cables, but their size.

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8 hours ago, Hecateh said:

Can easily run an extension from the garage - on its own spur - or do I need more than this?

[...]

 

No.

Make sure you use an RCD (Residual Current Device like this ) and  use this sort of cable:  Arctic  Blue 240 Volt 3 Core 13 Amp to 16 Amp, commonly referred to as 16amp arctic.

A few meters of this stuff never goes amiss either : mine got nicked after a month.

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Spoken to the guy today.  Very approachable but no joy as to any other way to achieve. 

 

Across the road is at capacity.  The one to the bungalow uses a method that they longer use - because of the increased demands on electricity each dwelling has to have its own supply. 

The library shown on the plan doesn't exist any more but their supply was also old style and no longer used.  The supply along the path to the north of the bungalow is only for street lighting.  

I am going to get another quote but, for that supply route the price is understandable I guess, and it's going to be another hit to the pocket. 

 

My new kitchen plan is getting more basic by the day.

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That's a bit of a bugger.

 

One way you could reduce the cost would be for the cable to come off the road into the front garden of your existing bungalow and from there across the front garden close to the road.  You (or your chosen contractor) could dig the trench for that bit, and it would reduce the length of road or path to be dug up.

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