Educating Ethos

Bike Stand or Toaster?

It is more than a year since a report that Western Power had declared a chain gate at our school illegal because it was attached to a pole forming part of their electricity distribution network. At the time a spokesman for Western Power said they were sending a crew out to inspect the gate.

Instead, staff at the school removed part of the gate themselves, something they were unqualified and unauthorised to carry out. A year on and the remainder of the gate, a chain which proved too rusty to conveniently remove, is still attached to the pole, and still presenting a hazard.

The illegal chain has invited use as a convenient point to secure bicycles, despite a serviceable bike stand provided by the school only 20 metres away. It is hoped that a crew from Western Power will eventually attend and remove the illegal fitting before someone uses it as a toaster.

A similar stay pole securing a nearby pole caught fire following a pole top fire in December last year, because the stay wire did not have an insulator to isolate it from electricity which leaked from the network. The fire was caused by wires carrying 23,000 volts fell after the wooden bearer supporting them burned through, allowing high voltage power to travel across the stay wire to the school side of the road with sufficient current to set alight to the stay pole opposite.

posted by kwoll @ 11:42 AM