Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Electric Goes Out While We are Away

While we were still enjoying our weekend at Adare Manor, Haley had several friends over and they were getting ready to go out to a Halloween party on Sunday.  They had the whole last week of October off of school - an autumn break, if you will.   At about 5:00 we got a call from Zach that the electricity went out.  Apparently, all three of the showers were being used at one time.  Ordinarily, that would  just mean that the hot water will run out - right?  But not here!  Here, as shown in my shots of the shower, the water heats up through the power unit that sits inside the shower, and thus it is a powerful  heater that pulls a lot of electricity.  What we did NOT know, is that because of how much energy they use, you really should only have one such shower running at a time.  Well, Haley and her friends  had all 3 going and blew the whole house fuse - but not only did it blow, it melted the casing around the wires.  Thankfully it didn't start a fire!

When they called, they asked if we were going to come home?  Well no - there was no electricity there - why would we hurry home?!  Besides, it is a 3 hour trip and there wasn't much we could do on a Sunday night - everything would be closed, and the next day was a bank holiday - so most things would again be closed.

So, the kids were using flashlights to find their way around, and then a neighbor showed up at the door to see what was going on.  He had noticed that our car was gone, and then saw flashlights and thought we were being robbed!  Honestly, pretty gutsy to come to the house!  I think I would have just called the Garda, but I am thankful that this guy just stopped over.  He talked to Zach and suggested we talk to the next door neighbor, Rory, who has a friend who is an electrician. 

So, Zach walks over, talks to Rory, he calls the friend, Gary, who comes by and makes a temporary repair so they had electricity for the night.  Then he came back and fixed it on Tuesday when Steve and I were back home.  This is why I love Ireland!! 

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