Why we needed a Bucket to reach the Pole

Heavy Summer rain

This week has been another "Character building" experience. Our Summer weather has deteriorated into days of absolutely hot muggy days that have featured extremely localised heavy rain throughout Northland. We have had dumps of 16mm to 42 mm in a very short period, followed by thick cloudy periods of humidity and it has been uncomfortable when trying to sleep or do any manual work. Lot's of fluid required!

The very dry conditions earlier in the month meant very hard ground, where even digging in a pigtail for the electric fence induced a painful reaction from my knee. It also meant that some electric wires on a power pole that feeds power to our pump house must have cracked and at the first shower of rain these wires shorted out. Poor Lyn got a hang of a fright when she was collecting produce. Just as she arrived on the deck there was a loud cracking noise followed by sparks and smoke from the power pole! The pump draws water from our river and is mainly for all outdoor watering, cattle troughs and our toilet. Fortunately we have an alternative source of water if there is a power outage and this saves an awful lot of drama.

Overflowing gutters

We rang the NorthPower faults office and left all the details and advised the receptionist that we would be absent from the property all Monday (two days later). We were pleasantly surprised when a technician arrived two hours later and he advised that the wires were the problem, but that the pump would probably still work ok until the next lot of rain, when it would blow a pole fuse. He then told us that because the poles were old and wooden he was not allowed to climb them to fix the fault and we would have to wait until a bucket truck arrived to lift them to the top of the pole. He suggested that as the poles could be dangerous, they would need to be replaced with concrete poles and he would arrange an inspector to call and give us a quote to do the replacements. Sheesh!

As we drove out of our drive the next morning, a large bucket truck arrived and I was able to show the crew where the faulty pole was and then we left them to fix the problem. On our return everything was all fixed and working properly. The Inspector arrived on Tuesday morning and after taking measurements and hobbling around the pump house (he had a bad attack of gout) he came up with some suggestions and ideas on how to rectify the ongoing hassle of the old poles and we are going to finally get a decent and safe supply of power. I gave him some suggestions on how to ease the pain of gout!

The intriguing thing about all this procedure is that although we are not allowed to touch anything to do with power coming onto our property, if anything goes wrong either with the equipment or other items relating to a power outage, we are responsible to pay for any repairs or maintenance as well as pay our monthly power bills. A user pays society indeed!