Quick fixes lead to residential panic

“Upon inspecting this temporary fix, it appears that the electrician combined all three phases into one.“

■ Joe Dreyer

Loadshedding seems to be a cause for great concern to the electrical department at the Greater Tzaneen Municipality with outdated transformers and cables across the grid now starting to buckle under the pressure of continuous switching.

In Yamorna this week, an electrical team was summoned to a faulty transformer in area 11 which seemed to malfunction after the power was switched back on following that area’s loadshedding schedule on the morning of the 4th of March.

Residents suspected a fault at their local transformer when the power failed to return to their homes and they logged a call with the GTM’s electrical department. A team was sent to the site and upon inspection found that there was indeed a fault.

“The electrician attended to the complaint and afterwards informed us that he had temporarily fixed the problem,” said one resident. “Upon inspecting this temporary fix, it appears that the electrician combined all three phases into one (as depicted in the accompanying image) and we are not experts, but we suspect that this is a dangerous connection which could likely lead to housefires or even loss of life.”

Bulletin spoke to a retired electrician who preferred to remain anonymous, looked at the photograph and explained that it was likely just the circuit breaker that stopped working and not the transformer. “That circuit breaker looks to be one of the old ones from years ago and it likely finally stopped working. If it was the transformer, you would get strange voltage readings and you wouldn’t have power in your house. All the GTM’s electricians would likely need to do is just change the circuit breaker and everything would be sorted. It would certainly not cause house fires and loss of life, but it would cause damage, which could damage the transformer and then the area would out of power. But if there was damage, it would on the GTM’s side, not the resident’s.”

The GTM’s electrician promised to fix the problem first thing the following morning, but allegedly after 17:00 that next day it had not yet been fixed. Appreciating the danger of this connection, and at around