1) If its un stable nocountryman69 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 9:07 pm Questions..
1) Would the DNO (NorthernPowergrid) be happy in trying to fit their meter board to a dry stone wall that is basically unstable ?
2) Would they insist that changes were made to bring the whole system into modern standards? Such as insisting meter moved to our house, for example ?
3) How should one feed a house 1/3 mile away from the company cutout ?
Really interested to hear what you folk think.
Running in overhead or underground 11kv to a transformer nearer our place has been quoted at £80k or so. Not a chance unless he wants to prise open his wallet.
2) No, you can have the service head and cut out wherever you want it so long as its in a secure weatherproof box affixed to a secure structure.
3) A suitable sized sub main cable (steel wire armour) from an isolator switch next to the meter / cutout down to the intake position / cons unit in the property. (you own this cable and will be responsible for any repairs to it.)
The service cable, service head, cut out unit and meter can only be re positioned by the distribution network operator ( DNO) and the meter operator (mop) who is chosen and appointed by your electricity supply company.
Should the farmer choose to take it upon the self to take them off the wall, demolish the wall, re build and put them all back on the new wall he / she is technically tampering with the DNO equipment, the dno will then want to check it is all safe, re do the work if needed and bill the person for tampering with their equipment. (even more so if they are called out mid work and the meter and service are lay on the ground.)
If it is mid work (wall down and meter box on the floor) making it unsafe they may need to make a temporary service supply (stake in the ground afix meter box and probably extend the service cable to fit the meter box in this temp location.)
Now an out of hours report and attendance of this kind of issue is not cheap, if they were called out at say 16:30 to a report of an illegal service alteration in progress you'd be Looking At (ALL COST FIGURES ARE A VERY ROUGH GUESS AS I DON'T WORK FOR THE DNO)
a network protection officer (say £60ph) a team manager (say £100ph,) jointer team (say £80ph x2 as there are 2 in a team) a grounds crew (2 person team) to dig up the ground to get on the cable (say £50ph x2) then the cost of materials (say Straight joint & £15 & cable £10per meter) ALL ex VAT.
all billing starts from when The individual staff start traveling to site, untill they finish on site.
if the jointer teams are busy with faults then the network protection officer may be waiting on site 3/4hrs till the jointer team can get to site and start their work (which maybe 4/5hrs worth of work) and the team manager may be there from start to end too.
A guess 7hrs x £420 (£3940+vat)
then when the wall is back up they will need to re attent and re fix the meter box to the new wall (altering the service again) but this will be cheaper as will be scheduled in for a planned job. (say a further £1000) all of this will be billed to the person(s) who illegally altered the service.
Now back to a legal DNO fix, Rather than a new 11kv transformer with LV service into your property, the DNO may be able to do a service alteration, they would joint a 500m run of 35mm concentric to the existing service cable and run it down to your property, then Install a new cutout into the meter box you have provided.
You will need to arrange for the meter operator (mop) to install the meter into the new meter box on the same day as the alteration, You will need your electrician to either relocate the cons unit or run new tails from the new meter position to the consumer unit (3m is the max length for tails)
If running new tails only, your electrician should be able to get the new tails and isolator switch made up, in place and ready to connect into the meter.
To save some cost on the service alteration hire a mini digger (if you dont have one) and trench the cable run yourself.
Your DNO will be able to provide you with the trench depths and widths they require.
Now who pays for this legal alteration work the DNO won't get involved with, that will be between you and the other person and the DNO won't start until they have been paid.
