I woke up on Sunday with no electricity in my house, which is neither the first time nor the last one.
I then walked out of the house to check what kind of a blackout I was experiencing. Kenya Power, in its bid to be a World Class provider of energy has recently diversified its blackout portfolio. Other than localised blackouts affecting an estate or two, they also offer regional blackouts affecting whole or multiple counties, sub-national blackouts affecting almost the entire country, and a specialised blackout that affects only some houses in the estate. The last kind, referred to as a phase out, can see you having no power while your next door neighbour has low power and a neighbour down the street has full power.
Kenya Power also offers promotional blackouts , where you get one blackout free. This happens where after several hours of a blackout, lights resume for a few hours before another blackout ensues.
At my meter box, I grabbed a broom to flick my light switch on and off. I am tall enough to reach my switch, but that thing has recently been making noises that indicate that it didn’t want to be touched. Furthermore, there was stuff that had leaked out of the switch, which I came to learn was actually the live wire melting and flowing out, enough to offer a fatal shock.
I once experienced a screwdriver in my hand almost being reduced to smithers, leading to an attempt to replace a live switch in campus being aborted halfway. I was therefore not going to attempt to replace my switch.
I did further enquiries with the watchman in the next court, just to confirm that the problem was limited to my supply.
The watchman offered to inspect my supply and went ahead to offer to replace the burned switch. The replacement unit was in the meter box, being an old one that was no longer in use after the postpaid meter was replaced with a prepaid one, which I came to learn doesn’t need switches.
I proceeded to ask Mzaire, the watchman, if he was sure of what he was doing , especially after his previous attempt at being a plumber in my house had seen him throwing the towel and calling a professional plumber. Mzaire was cocksure, he was even explained that he was trained in “these things”.
All he needed was a pair of pliers, and a star tipped screwdriver, which I soon provided. After switching off my supply, he proceeded to quickly unscrew the burned switch, exposing the part where the live wire had fused onto a bolt, burning a coin sized hole through the base of the switch. He then screwed on the older switch, which he explained was better in quality than the switch we were replacing.
The first time we tested, it didn’t work. He then replaced the fuse on the switch with one from his pocket, this. That confirmed that he had played electrician a couple of times before, to be even walking with a fuse in his pocket. The second test didn’t see the lights come on either, but was instead followed by two screams, from a neighbour who had been watching the whole fiasco. She explained that there had been a couple of sparks.
My neighbour, who had walked in at some point and complained that his stacked plastic seats weren’t meant to support the watchman’s weight, walked out of his house, complaining that his power was gone. The four red dots indicating supply to the circuit breaker were now off. As if on cue, Mzaire was already at the gate, from where he advised that we should get the estate electrician to fix the mess.
It was getting dark, around 7 P.M. , when we went over to look for the electrician. His shop was locked. The number painted in red outside the door wasn’t going through either. A call to Kenya Power saw me explaining what had happened, to which they promised to send a team.
An hour later, my other neighbour knocked to and also complained of not having electricity for a number of hours. I informed him that Kenya Power were responding to the issue, but omitted the bit on what had caused the error.
At 10 P.M. , after many false trips to the gate, a second call to Kenya Power was returned by the promise that the team were still finding the way to my place, at the speed of light.
By 7:30 A.M. , Kenya Power were yet to turn up and the electrician’s phone was still off. A call to Kenya Power was met with the response that the overnight team, lacking enough light to find my place, had handed over the complaint to the incoming team, who would be coming soon.
I was able to get the electrician in a few hours, who then came and inspected the repair. Mzaire had crossed his wiring, thus the live wire now crossed through the switch to the neutral wire while the neutral crossed to the live one. The effect was that either the fuse at the Kenya Power street cabinets had blown or the cable leading to the same cabinet had burned.
In fact, since I was using a prepaid meter, the switch was no longer required and therefore my wiring should have been directly done to the meter.
Replacing an underground cable takes from weeks to months, after the payment of a fine usually more than Ksh. 30,000.
In addition, Mzaire’s error could have also blown electronics in my house, or several houses, which usually requires compensation. The Kenya Power team soon arrived and traced the damage to a cabinet where no less than three fuses had blown. Mzaire was still nowhere to be found. The Kenya Power team was intent on having a little chat with Mzaire.
As friendly advice, the team advised me that next time I tamper with Kenya Power equipment, I should plead the fifth by only reporting that I didn’t have power to Kenya Power. It is up to the responding team to report what caused the outage.
The asked if I was going to “cover their eyes”, to which a hard earned Ksh. 500 note was passed over from my shallow pockets. For the simple task of joining two wires together, with tape borrowed from Kenya Power, the electrician charged a measly Ksh. 600, which made me wince with pain, just on the mention.
18 hours later, several of my neighbours could resume to their normal day to day lives after Mzaire’s attempt saw them go without power. Kenya Power advises that you should call them every time you don’t have power. The responding team will then advise if you need to hire an electrician to sort you out.