On 22 Feb, 2007, at 18:03, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: I live on a farm, we have a three phase step down transformer on a pole in our field. It steps down from 11,000 volts to 240/440 volts. I guess the 11,000v is across phases as there is no neutral conductor. We used to have a two wire supply to the pole with a 240-0-240 transformer. Then the incoming cloth covered wiring from the pole caught fire. Couldn't do much - it was before it reached any of our fuse boxes or even the meters, even pulling out the 'company' fuses would not have isolated it. We put it out but ran out of powder extinguishers. The fire brigade took over half an hour to arrive (it was in January and it was snowing). They went into the house with breathing apparatus and just saved the house. Everything was covered in congealed PVC, some decorative candles had completely melted and they said another couple of minutes and we would have lost the house. They sat on the stairs for four hours, putting out each new fire in the distribution board until the electricity company turned up and pulled the 1000 Amp fuses on the pole above the barbed wire. The fire brigade were about to leave when my mother pointed out some smoke coming from the wall. The upper storey is timber framed and the woodwork behind the distribution board was alight. They ripped off the Kent peg tiles and we finished the day with a big hole in both inner and outside surfaces of the wall. Next day the electricity company turned up to read the meters, I said hold your hand out, and I dropped a few loose brass wheels which had had numbers painted on them into his hand and pointed out that was all that was left of the meters. The best guess we could get from anyone was that it was a mis-matched load over the two 'phases' (actually 180 degrees apart), and that the neutral wire could not cope. Later on we got the company apparatus moved into a redundant chimney where it could catch light without doing much damage and I paid 400 pounds to have an extra wire put on the overhead supply to the pole and the transformer upgraded to a three phase unit, so I could power my lathe, mill, shaper, surface grinder, pillar drill and my mainframe computer from the mains instead of using a generator. Roger Holmes.