63A main panel fuse blows if power outage occurs

OK, that's a bit confused, he's not saying to me he won't come out, not at all, but he's saying that with the known issue of meters hopping fuses, there's no advantage him coming out until the meter has been sorted, and with the description of the fault, (we had a LONG chat about it here a couple of days ago, he fitted an EV charger here for me last week), his friend in ESB said that it's a very much known issue, and there won't be a fault on the consumer side of things, so we're better holding fire until ESB have been out, and he will be surprised if there'a an issue after they've been out, given the history.

the REC contact in ESB did specifically mention that this is one of the symptoms of the meter fault, and yes, I too found it slightly incredible, as you say in theory, nothing is flowing, nothing is connected, but if they are saying that's what's happening, I'm not about to argue with the people who are a lot closer to this than I am.

It's been a while since I was working with stuff like this, it was a very long time ago now, we had a site in the UK that got wired with a non standard socket, to prevent cleaners removing the plug to use it for their vacuum, as it was a small computer that ran 24/5, only off over weekends, and on this particular site, it was wired in MICC, for fire reasons, and it worked with no issues for 3 years, then one weekend, it didn't start up correctly on Monday, so we got called in, and spent several days trying to work out why it wasn't working and back then, if we didn't fix it in a couple of days, the bank would ship in a replacement terminal to get them going again.

We set the new unit up out in the back room, got it all working, and then swapped the machines over, and as part of that, swapped the plug over to allow it to be connected in the right location, pressed the on button, and the replacement machine failed in exactly the same way as the original, at which point, we were in to investigating the socket, and we found that the spark that fitted it hadn't put in one essential short piece of wire, the MICC gland terminated the cable in the metal box, but he hadn't put a wire from the box terminal on to the effectively floating earth pin in the plastic insulated socket, so the earth was floating, and the computer depended on having a viable earth, and without it, the ground voltage floated up to about +2.5v, so the logic systems that depended on zero or plus 5 were all getting horribly confused. The issue was that without changing anything, or moving anything, it had worked for 3 years like that. The fix was easy, the spark came in and fitted the piece of wire that should have been there from day 1, and it all worked perfectly. as did the machine that was out in the back office. The exact reason was never determined, and we'd not been given any reason to suspect the power in that it had been signed off on install, and had worked perfectly for 3 years. Since then, I've been open to listen to all possible theories about reasons for a fault ,because sometimes, even though they come out of left base, they're right.

Guys, right now, I need to defend the REC that's been involved, and from the outset, I will say very clearly. he has NOT refused to come out and look at this, he has said that he was advised by his ESB friend who he was working with on a joint project at a medium voltage site that there was a known issue with smart meters from a specific manufacturer, and that until the meter had been checked out, and most likely exchanged, there was very little liklihood of finding a fault on this installation, so his position was very simple, he could indeed come out, but on the basis of the very clear advice he'd been given, it might be a non productive visit and not a good use of limited resources. I respect that.

No, I'm not a REC, simply because at nearly 73, I'm not likely to get approved by any of the certification bodies here in Ireland, and even if I could, the cost of the essential test gear and the mandatory insurances would mean I'd have to work all the hours of the day and night to pay for it all, and that's not where I'm at these days, I don't want to be chasing my tail all over the place any more.

I did all my training way before companies handed out a piece of paper to prove you'd been on a specific course, it was of course in your personnel record, and the brutal reality 50 years ago was that if you didn't achieve a reasonable standard during the course you were sent on, then your future with the company was likely to be under a cloud, or even terminated, I was working with a major company that was very well known for mechanical accounting machines, and 50 years ago, they started introducing electronic computing style sytems, and we had to both install and maintain them, and some of them used a lot of power in those days, and we had to do it without much of the sort of equipment that's taken for granted now.

50 years ago, the rules that applied to things like gas and electricity were very different, and as long as the inspector of the utility was happy with the tests they did when they came out to connect to their supply, they were happy, and you knew they could, and did, do specific checks, and more, when they came out, and there was no point in trying to pull the wool over their eyes, they knew very quickly how to recognise sub standard work, they could usually spot it within seconds of starting their checks, and they were very rarely wrong. I did all the gas work, and all the electical work on the house we bought, gutted and renovated, with no issues, and if the system here was not so anal, I'd probably have tried to become recognised 25 years ago when some of the more serious restrictions came in, but there were just too many petty restrictions that made it very hard to join what was becoming a very restrictive club, they wanted proof of courses attended, and that wasn't available, and in the end, it wasn't worth the fight.

When it was still legal, I did the electrical fit out of several bare shell retail units for my daughter, all of which were happily signed off by the ESB inspector, and some of the work here at my own home on the 3 phase systems that related to the computer area and standby generator were down to me, and signed off after a very detailed inspection by a senior manager from ESB Swords, he came out because automatic changeover generators were rare in a small user setting, so he wanted to see it first hand, and be absolutely certain that all the rules about ensuring no way to back feed up to 50KVa into the network were being completely complied with, and he was happy with what he saw, so I will say it as I see it, while I can't legally get involved with the single phase domestic stuff, that doesn't mean I don't know what's going on, and right now, what's happening in Duleek defies logic, but if someone from ESB gives us a specific pointer that suggests a specific issue with the meter, even though I don't fully understand the 'how', I'm not about to argue, I've done what we were asked to do, which is to get ESBN involved, and when I rang them yesterday, I didn't have to push too hard to get them to put it in to the sytem for checking, the call centre operative did put me on hold while he spoke with an adviser, and they didn't throw the issue out as impossible, so that's where we're at for now, and I don't know how long it will take, or what their exact plan is.

When I have specific news, I will update this thread, whatever the outcome.

Unfortunately not, it's been crazy busy here at home here, with a lot of OPW work going on to finish the flood scheme (at last), and since the original couple of days with significant issues, there's been nothing happening on that front at all, no trips, no fuses blowing, it's gone back to the situation it was before the change to the supply, and I won't get chance to follow up with ESB until after Easter now, we're going away for a few days to visit family in the UK, and I don't want to rock the boat with them until I can spend the time on it that's needed, and review what they've found, it's possible they did monitor things without calling my daughter, nothing's been said recently.