Lights flickering when neighbours using pressure washer?

Phil99

Phil99

Phil99

Soldato
Joined
29 Oct 2004
Posts
10,884
Our neighbours have been using a pretty dodgy looking pressure washer all day to do various jobs in their garden; usually there'd be no problem with this but it seems to be affecting our electricity.

Whenever it's switched on or off all our lights flicker. Had a look at my plug in power monitor and it seems when it's on it's dropping our mains supply to 233v from 239v or so - a noticable drop and definitely co-incides with them switching the pressure washer on.

Is this something to be concerned about or worth contacting the electricity supplier about? We've always had slightly flickery lights but never associated it with the neighbours!
 
it's probably short-circuiting or something :rolleyes:

either that or it's just got a massively and excessively powerful motor.
 
It's fine, it's voltage drop, you get it also when turning PA amps on or anything like that...

Your light bulbs will be fine also, only worry if it starts going below 200v constantly...
 
Have they ran the lead into your garage and plugged it in there to steal your electricity?

I'd just tell them they've got a duff washer, or consult your other neighbours to see if they are also affected.
 
According to Wikipedia the UK power supply must fall between 230 V +10% −6% which is 216.2V - 253V, so any equipment you have should be fine over that range. I wouldn't expect your supplier to be bothered about a 6V drop

When anyone in my house switches the shower on or off the lights flicker briefly as well, I've never been particularly worried about.
 
My Karcher K685M causes this in my house when i/brother uses it. Plug it in and switching on is fine but whenever you pull the trigger the lights flicker and dim ever so slightly, let go and they go back to normal. Haven't had any complaints from neighbours so i'm assuming they are fine lol
 
Possibly...

Pressure washers seem to draw ~1500w... which is about 6 and a half amp, give or take, if it causes the voltage to drop by 6 volts when its running then this would equate to a L-N impedance of 6/6.5 = 0.92 ohm which is very much on the high side, and could indicate a high resistance joint somewhere, it would also mean that if your neighbours owned an electric shower which takes about 40A then supposedly you would notice a voltage drop of 0.92x40 = 36.8V :eek:

I assume you live in either a teraced or semi-detached property?
 
Adam_151 said:
Possibly...

Pressure washers seem to draw ~1500w... which is about 6 and a half amp, give or take, if it causes the voltage to drop by 6 volts when its running then this would equate to a L-N impedance of 6/6.5 = 0.92 ohm which is very much on the high side, and could indicate a high resistance joint somewhere, it would also mean that if your neighbours owned an electric shower which takes about 40A then supposedly you would notice a voltage drop of 0.92x40 = 36.8V :eek:

I assume you live in either a teraced or semi-detached property?
Click to expand...

Interesting. We're in a semi but strangely enough it's not the attached neighbours that are causing this but the non-attached neighbours the other side (also a semi).

Duke said:
You need a new flux capacitor.
Click to expand...

Ah, I thought as much! :D
 
My speakers and lights crackle and flicker respectively whenever I use my shredder. Kinda fun when I forget and think I've been shot from the noise.
 
All the lights dim in both halves of our semi (different parts of the extended family live in each side) when we use our shower. Dad insisted on fitting a 10kW one for some reason (maybe it was a 9.5 - I forget - does 10 exist?) but it's too much for the shoddy wiring in the house to cope with, really.
 
A.N.Other said:
All the lights dim in both halves of our semi (different parts of the extended family live in each side) when we use our shower. Dad insisted on fitting a 10kW one for some reason (maybe it was a 9.5 - I forget - does 10 exist?) but it's too much for the shoddy wiring in the house to cope with, really.
Click to expand...
For a 10Kw shower I think you need to use cable with 4mm CSA...
 
sounds to me like your local sub-station transformer is showing its age and more power is being drawn from it than initially specced.
As stated above I wouldnt worry unless the voltage goes below 200v
 
My pressure washer seems to draw a ridiculous amount of energy. It trips an unwound extension lead rated to 3000 watts.

It shouldn't affect your lights though, unless your neighbours have wired into your mains.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom