Electricity problems Swords (Applewood)

Reg'stoy

The lights in the house have been dimming every 20mins or there abouts over the weekend. Annoying because I have to reset the wireless router after every surge/drop in supply, took me a while to cop that both were connected. Not too worried as I have most things connected to anti surge extension leads, am just wondering if anyone else having similar problems.

red_ice

yup, my gf is on the opposite side of the roundabout as you come out of applewood village and the power was out last night for most of the night.. i count 3 times in the last month. I dont think its going out every day tho

shopaholic

Same thing is happening in balbriggan! Just hope power doesn't go completely!

Reg'stoy

shopaholic wrote: »

Same thing is happening in balbriggan! Just hope power doesn't go completely!

Ditto, I'm entered into the big tournament on pokerstars tonight , you would think with all of the xmas lights now been switched off there would be less demand on the supply.

Rashers72

Same in Skerries....

Lady_North

I am in Rivervalley, Swords and most of last night lights kept dipping, wireless connection going all the time. Well the power finally went tonight. Gone for over two hours. Pain in the backside. I am sick to the back teeth of this. It seem like we are forever having power cuts.

dubmick

same in Balrothery

davork

We were out last night (Saturday) from near 8:30pm through 11:40 ish

Kids weren't happy(!)

Wishbone Ash

shopaholic wrote: »

Same thing is happening in balbriggan!

Rashers72 wrote: »

Same in Skerries....

Lady_North wrote: »

I am in Rivervalley, Swords and most of last night lights kept dipping

dubmick wrote: »

same in Balrothery

Dimming in Rush also! :eek:

dsmythy

Lady_North wrote: »

I am in Rivervalley, Swords and most of last night lights kept dipping, wireless connection going all the time. Well the power finally went tonight. Gone for over two hours. Pain in the backside. I am sick to the back teeth of this. It seem like we are forever having power cuts.

The annoying thing for me is when the electricity went off in the Valley (yet again), as i sat at my computer, i went downstairs to fetch some light and i was blinded by the streetlights in the new estate within a stones throw from me. The annoying thing was nobody even lives there yet!!! Not only that but new apartments that loom over my house were full of light. They are always grand when the lights go out.

I want their network!

Splinter

yup im in rivervally myself, noticed some really bad power dips on saturday and then the power was off for bout 4 hours on sunday evening

Sizzler

Anybody ring the ESB to get a reason for the outages that are on here?

dsmythy

splinter wrote: »

yup im in rivervally myself, noticed some really bad power dips on saturday and then the power was off for bout 4 hours on sunday evening

Yeah i had to peg it down to the Lamb to catch the American Football action.

Extraplus

Sizzler wrote: »

Anybody ring the ESB to get a reason for the outages that are on here?

I have been onto them a few times because, bar the obvious outages, I also have to reset the clocks on everything at lease twice a week which means the power is going during the night.

I have heard a variety of reasons but the most common (and most likely I think) is that alot of North County Dublin is connected by old overland cables. These cables can be interfered with by anything around them, most commonly trees. When we get bad weather the ESB tries to find the tree or whatever and fix it but there is miles of cables and no end to the trees etc it could be.

Sizzler

I had heard vandalism as well was a factor? Muppets throwing stuff onto overland cables :mad:

tbh

same again last night. Ringing the ESB is a waste of time. "the power is out in Swords, we don't know when it'll be back". I heard the same as you sizzler, kids throwing stuff at the substation down near applewood. You'd have a more regular supply in Baghdad!

Sizzler

Off for 90 Mins last night I heard ! An improvement on Sunday :rolleyes:

Baghdad get a better service as all the electricity repair lads there are US contractors on $20k a month :eek:

The Black Oil

Same in Lusk, no loss of power but flickering of lights. Wireless has been dodgy too though I think this may be connected to our cordless phone which seems to knock out the wireless after every call.

Dizzyblonde

We're sick to death of power outages here in Swords now - maybe all the new developments have put a strain on the system?
Though I did hear that in the ESB station in Finglas there's a map and Swords is marked as 'high risk' for vandalism.

Dizzyblonde

The Black Oil wrote: »

Same in Lusk, no loss of power but flickering of lights. Wireless has been dodgy too though I think this may be connected to our cordless phone which seems to knock out the wireless after every call.

Our wireless hasn't worked since Sunday's power cut, I think something blew in the modem. They're sending us a new one.

Lady_North

Got this in my email today..............



ESB to spend half-million in Swords area in next two weeks to tackle faults
Education officers to visit schools to warn of dangers of vandalism

THE ESB is to invest half a million Euro on a massive upgrade operation of Swords power-lines over the next two weeks alone, Dublin North Deputy Michael Kennedy (FF) has revealed. Deputy Kennedy said: "The ESB has informed me that over Euro 500,000 is to be spent in the next fortnight, repairing major faults to the Swords power system which has been left fragile because of repeated abuse by vandals."

"This week's power failures in Rivervalley, Brackenstown, and Broadmeadows were the culmination of years of vandalism, coupled with a significant increase in population. The system has been left vulnerable and overstretched, triggering a series of failures to many local areas over the past week. The ESB has pledged over half a million euro for repair works which are to be completed within the next two weeks."

"Unfortunately, hundreds of houses have been left without electricity because of the actions of some inconsiderate vandals. The fault last Sunday, 6th January was due to a fault in an underground cable that tripped the system and this has been repaired. The power was out for several hours and at the most inconvenient of times, at 6pm in the evening."

"The fault last night (Thursday 10th January) in the River Valley / Rathingle / Ridgewood area was unrelated and the ESB believe that this may have been caused by vandalism. Deputy Kennedy added that officials from ESB are considering visiting schools in the Swords and Malahide area following this week's power failures.

Deputy Kennedy said: "I welcome this move because I don't think young people necessarily understand the consequences of vandalising ESB property. This week's events will leave many young people, along with their parents very aware of the result of this behaviour."

"The ESB suspect that something may have been thrown at the power lines in an act of vandalism that caused the system to trip. Aside from the fact that this is a very dangerous act, vandalism of power lines causes great inconvenience to everyone who has to go without power," concluded Deputy Kennedy.

Wishbone Ash

We've had no problems in Rush since the 6th inst. I presume it may have been connected with the recent stormy weather.

The Black Oil wrote: »

Wireless has been dodgy too

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Our wireless hasn't worked since Sunday's power cut

For a minute there I thought I had stumbled across a thread with OAPs discussing radios!

Dizzyblonde

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

For a minute there I thought I had stumbled across a thread with OAPs discussing radios!

Haha that made me laugh out loud

Ginny

We've had dips for ages in Boromihe, I think it was Thursday night all of Ridgewood was out.
I know the problem before was kids throwing stuff onto the whateveritscalled near Ridgewood, blowing the power for the whole area.

Lady_North

I am in an area of Rivervalley that loses power all the time. My hubby just came in and told me that Ridgewood, and half of Rivervalley is without power, AGAIN!!! I am just surprised that ours has not gone off. I will wait patiently. It probably will.............

The Muppet

Brackenstown is out again this evening. Thats the 3rd time in a week.

Lady_North

It is just so stupid. The ESB better get this sorted. I wonder what would happen if people refused to pay all of their ESB bill? It is such a pain in the backside.

Reg'stoy

I never realised the problem was so widespread and so as the original poster I have sent an e-mail to the esb customer service dept. and I included a link to this thread, don't know if it will have any impact on them but you never know.

tbh

I rang tonight and they said that the three faults were not related. FFS!

Splinter

Lady_North wrote: »

I am in an area of Rivervalley that loses power all the time. My hubby just came in and told me that Ridgewood, and half of Rivervalley is without power, AGAIN!!! I am just surprised that ours has not gone off. I will wait patiently. It probably will.............

yeah generally whenever theres a problem with power in rivervalley, i lose all power but not last night for some reason

Dizzyblonde

I'm in the area of rivervalley that was out again last night - and we could see other roads around us with full power, lol.
I heard it was vandalism, so in this case it's not the fault of the ESB but the parents of the little darlings who are out there doing this.

Sizzler

I heard it was gone again last night for an hour and a half :eek:

When my mate called the ESB they said they didnt know what the problem was and didnt have a fix time :rolleyes:

therecklessone

Lady_North wrote: »

I am in an area of Rivervalley that loses power all the time. My hubby just came in and told me that Ridgewood, and half of Rivervalley is without power, AGAIN!!! I am just surprised that ours has not gone off. I will wait patiently. It probably will.............

I'd just finished my dinner in Ridgewood when it went Monday night, ended up going to bed.

What pissed me off was the apartments right across the road from me had full power.

I suspect the ESB are using vandalism to cover up for the fact that their infrastructure can't handle the load of all of the development in Swords over the last few years.

Here's hoping their €0.5m goes some way to sorting the problems.

Shred

therecklessone wrote: »

I suspect the ESB are using vandalism to cover up for the fact that their infrastructure can't handle the load of all of the development in Swords over the last few years.

I'm in Rivervalley for just over 3.5 years and this is what I've long suspected to be the truth. We must have lost power 20 times in the 3.5 years we've been here and then I don't know how many more additional times when we've come home to see the cooker clock flashing etc:mad: I was listening to Newstalk just before Christmas when there were the major outages in West Dublin and a guy from the ESB was on saying they are unable to guarantee supply due to the massive demands on the network. I've raised complaints with the ESB before (including one time when it went for 3 hours 2 days in a row) and just got the usual crap about vandalism etc back. I'm sick and tired of it at this stage and I'm going to look into getting a small diesel generator or something as the ESB simply can't be relied upon.

Sizzler

Anybody tried emailing their customer services to try and get a goodwill gesture put on their bill for the inconvenience caused?

Shred

Well considering the generic response I got whenever I raised a complaint I reckon it'd be a waste of time tbh.

Extraplus

I wouldn't hold your breath for any type of a refund from ESB.

In fact, after getting sick of the constant dips, mini cuts and full on cuts I decided to ring ESB customer Service each and every time there was an issue so they were aware of the problems and might work towards a permanent fix.

The attitude I got mostly was 'Well if it is back working now, whats your problem?' or 'None of your neighbours have complained'. Once, when the power had gone 3 times in one day (only for 2-10 mins at a time) the customer service rep told me they were going to start charging me for engineer call out costs if I kept complaining!

Sizzler

Extraplus wrote: »

I wouldn't hold your breath for any type of a refund from ESB.

In fact, after getting sick of the constant dips, mini cuts and full on cuts I decided to ring ESB customer Service each and every time there was an issue so they were aware of the problems and might work towards a permanent fix.

The attitude I got mostly was 'Well if it is back working now, whats your problem?' or 'None of your neighbours have complained'. Once, when the power had gone 3 times in one day (only for 2-10 mins at a time) the customer service rep told me they were going to start charging me for engineer call out costs if I kept complaining!

Unbelievable! I love the line 'None of your neighbours have complained' :rolleyes:

Reg'stoy

Hi folks,
Have gotten no reply to my e-mail to th ESB on this matter yet, wife suggested I send one to Micheal Kennedy TD and so might I suggest we all do so. Thankfully my part of applewood doesn't seem to have the same problems as those of you living in Rivervalley. I still can't believe that this is going on in this day and age.

Shred

A letter was delivered to my house today from Michael Kennedy/Darragh Butler in regards to the problems with electricity supply in Swords and detailing what the ESB propose to do, most of which is detailed in the e-mail sent to Lady_North (unfortunately I don't have a scanner but I'm sure most of you have got the letter also). I'm just glad to have finally got some sort of acknowledgment and know that the ESB are actually trying to do something to the address the problems. We'll have to wait and see how it pans out once the works have been completed I suppose.

dsmythy

Shred wrote: »

A letter was delivered to my house today from Michael Kennedy/Darragh Butler in regards to the problems with electricity supply in Swords and detailing what the ESB propose to do, most of which is detailed in the e-mail sent to Lady_North (unfortunately I don't have a scanner but I'm sure most of you have got the letter also). I'm just glad to have finally got some sort of acknowledgment and know that the ESB are actually trying to do something to the address the problems. We'll have to wait and see how it pans out once the works have been completed I suppose.

Got the same letter. Fair play for them for what their doing. Havn't heard from any other local representatives.

CLLR D. BUTLER

Hello all. Just signed up today. If any of you want the ESB update from last month, please private message me and I will forward it on. Also, if anyone wants to give me their Estate / Road Name and Email address, then I can forward on any news updates from Michael Kennedy T.D. and myself. thanks

Sizzler

^^ Fair play for posting Councillor.

Dont think theres been any recent outages which is good but dont think the ESB would mind if you posted the update here as its in all the public's interests.