Had a call today from one of my farmers, "we seem to have a problem with one of the pumps, it keeps tripping", "Where is it" I asked....
"It's about half a mile from the road across a field, you might have to walk"

Anyway a couple of hours later I arrive to meet the farm manager, when I asked for the location of the pump, he said "it's a submersible, in the river"

Need I say much more given the current river conditions, the field was probably half a mile from road to pump, a quarter wet, a quarter had actually become river and was flowing about 8 inches to a foot deep where the river had decided to cut the corner. The pump control "shed" sits high on the river bank about 4ft above the newly created waterline.

After a bit of looking at it and discussion we decide that if we can cross the standing water, the flowing water looked shallower (it only covered the wheels) and went for it.
Having got to the "shed" and checked the pump all was in order, but we discovered that those awfully nice people from UKPN were only supplying two out of the required three phases.

Successfully recrossed the new suffolk river system and retreated back to the safety of the farm workshop, left the farmer to contact UKPN, I normally do it, but I sort of thought that suggesting they respond with either a boat or jointers with scuba gear might not go down too well


Stu

yes, but what caused the fuse to blow!

Regards.

I don't think it was the fuse (well not in the cutout). Voltstick suitably desensed with fingers suggested fuse was good (in so much that the other two indicated live both sides and L1 indicated not live both sides).

It's UG fed from somewhere with a 3 phase cutout and meter mounted about 6ft above the river bank. My design would have put the vital bits further from the river and in a decent building not an oversized wooden cupboard.

It's a 35mm service feeding the cutout so it can't be too far before there's a joint onto a larger cable can there ??. A quick look around didn't make any overheads obvious although to be fair I was more concerned with getting back off my little island than working out where the transformer was (that's someone else's job with a bigger pair of wellies)

It's a 35kw pump that's been running full bore since November 1st filling a reservoir, The pump IR tested perfectly and the windings all measured good (much to my surprise) which pleased me because recovering the pump won't be an option for several days possibly weeks with the weather forecast.


Stu