We had a similar issue with our house a number of years ago, switching on the elctric cooker or the 8.5Kw electric shower would cause the lights to dim, so I decided to investigate. The earth loop value was within the limits and not at the higher end either, I attached a voltmeter to the incomer and also a clamp ammeter, I could actually get the voltage down to about 150V when pulling a load of about 40A, dependant on the time of day. The DNO came out and the young lad did a loop test, said it was fine and went to leave, I then showed him my results and gave him a demonstration, he instantly said he knew what it was and shortly afterwards proceeded to dig up the road outside our house.
He'd just about got to the joint when a more senior engineer arrived and asked why he'd dug up the road, had he not read the recent briefings? It then turned out that the reason for the fault was that the ring we were fed from had gone faulty and they'd isolated a section meaning we were on the end of a very long radial. About a week later they repaired the cable and all was well, for the time being at least.
They've just started a major cable replacement programme in my area, a large amount of the 132Kv feeders to the subs are being replaced, I think that they'd put it off for as long as they could, when power cuts became a twice weekly event and the restoration time was being measured in times of 7 or 8 hours they had to do something.
It's all very well people telling us to use more electric as it is 'cleaner and greener' but a lot of the infrastructure is not up to it. I remember a couple of years ago on a job, I had the DNO out to a fault and we got chatting, he showed me the cable drawings for the estate, built in the 50's iirc, the feeder for the street we were in comprising about 150 houses was an old cable and was only a 16mm 4 core, or it's imperial equivalent more accurately.
I can see a time in the not to distant future when having an EV charge point will dramatically affect the value of your home, we all know the network capbilities are finite and at some point the DNO will start to restrict who can have an EV point based on local loadings. Now let us take two identical houses, say yours and your next door neighbours, they are both worth lets say £250K for arguments sake, now suppose he has an EV point fitted and shortly after the DNO refuses to allow any more because that cable has reached it's capacity, so you can't have one, how is that going to affect not only your house price, but also the ability to sell it!
Will yours be worth less because for the forseeable future you cannot have an EV point, will it possibly even limit the number of people interested in buying your property, after all if you already own an EV, or are seriously considering buying one, there''s no point buying a property where you cannot have a charge point fitted.
I had it today after carrying out an EICR,,, kids come home from school "MUUUUUM... the internet isn't working!".. luckily I'd finished so I told them to plug it back in
