Just another Saturday, until it wasn’t.

Just after lunch I got very cross with my iMac because it had gone to sleep and wouldn’t wake up. After a while of cussing and pressing power-on button very hard and checking power cord etc the penny dropped. We had lost power.

Now the $3000 control box that was destroyed by ants forming contacts between vital components – shorting out – is still in Christchurch or on its way so the generator didn’t start up as it should when the grid goes down. But I should be able to start it manually. The generator was easy once I’d located the key to unlock the lid. There were three buttons marked STOP, AUTO, and RUN. The STOP button was flashing. So, nothing ventured etc, I pressed RUN and the generator turned over for a while and then roared into life.

But, still no power on the buildings. So I left voicemail with Campbell Watt in Christchurch (021 228 3055) and then rang electrician who helped install the generator, Aaron Wakeford (021 878 741) and he told me that there was a switch in the control box that I needed to switch on. As I recalled it is extremely stiff and you need an extender handle to be able to turn the switch but I managed it. Restarted the generator, warned Gillian, who is house-sitting for Marcus et al while away for a break at lake Rotoiti, to let go of any bare wires she might be clutching, and it all sprang into life. Next four hours we were on generator power.

I called neighbour Louise Haywood wife of Brian Cope (our cell towers still working but others in HB down, maybe I should get StarLink) and she agreed to let me know when the grid came back on. She told me the Hawkes Bay wide power cut was a lightening strike on Trans Power link connecting Hawkes bay to the main north island grid and it might be some time before it was fixed. A couple of hours later she let me know that urgent needs such as the hospital and the BP petrol (and electricity) station at Stortford Lodge were back up but that was being rerouted from Wellington. A couple more hours and we were all back up and I switched back to the grid.

Well its good to know that my expensive investment of a backup generator works and Aaron says he’ll be round on Christmas Eve to replace the control unit so then I should have smooth “no hands” transfer to and from the generator when needed.

News spread of this event and was on our evening news with pictures of the electricity pylons melted in the strike. Given Robin heard about it in UK perhaps we made a line in international news. It’s dry as anything here – total fire bans and stringent water restrictions for those on mains water.

Ants are a problem here, not only did they infest the generator and its control box but they also killed the pump in our waste system a few weeks back – again by bridging circuits with their nest building. Catch 22 with the waste management system is that the alarm in the cottage is powered from the waste management controls outside so I had no idea it had stopped working until some other electrical problem made me look in the mains box and see that the septic tank circuit had triggered. Lucky that was noticed before the sewage backed up into the cottage but it was quite a procedure for team of plumbers to unclog the septic system which had been overflowing for a week or so.

And would you know, vermin damage, and explicitly ant damage is excluded in domestic insurance policies in New Zealand, but the generator is on Karola’s farm insurance which has no such exclusion, or so my broker tells me.

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [?]