It’s getting to be summer here in Kandahar – getting to be is defined as over 100 degrees most days but not yet over 115 yet. The temperatures put increased strain on everything, but mostly on the electrical infrastructure, what there is of it.
A note on my limited expertise here – my first real job was as a mechanic’s assistant for a small construction company. As such, i learned a great deal about small and mid-sized diesel engines, generators, and air compressors. Who knew that 30 years later, that experience would come back to help/haunt me.
On the police side, we’ve been wrestling with two overheating generators since before I went on a much-needed leave in June. They were starting to overheat then, when the temps were just in the 90’s during the day. By the time I got back in late June, they were going down every afternoon for 4-6 hours. Finally, we figured out that the radiators had become clogged with a mixture of oil and dust – oil droplets from a leaking crankshaft seal on one and from spilled oil beneath the other had combined with the omnipresent dust to almost completely clog the radiators. This, combined with the fact that the generators are sitting in direct sunlight let to them overheating anytime the temperature went over 100 degrees – which was every afternoon. We had to totally disassemble the cooling systems and remove the radiator assemblies and send them downtown to clean them (no pressure washers available here).
Within two days of fixing that, the main circuit breaker tripped and wouldn’t reset. Investigation showed that it was a 160 amp breaker. We knew from the readouts on the generator that they were pulling more than 160 amps from time to time – and this proved it for sure. So we requested that it be replaced with a 200 amp breaker. From what we can tell, the electrician installed it backwards. It lasted one day then destroyed itself in a spectacular fashion, almost taking the rest of the circuit box with it. When we went to replace it, the new electrician refused to put another of the same brand in – saying “That is cheap Chinese shit”. We sprung for a Siemens breaker (7 times as much) that easily weighed twice as much as the Chinese one. As we were installing it, we noticed that it was counterintuitive – we are used to installing switches with “on” at the top and “off” at the bottom – but in this case, the breaker had to be mounted the other way – in tiny letters molded into the housing it had “load” on one side and “line” on the other. Load being the use side and line being the supply side. We turned it around and so far so good.
The very next day, we started to have serious problems on the US-side of the base. We have been “blessed” with two bona-fide US certified contractor electricians. So far, almost everything they have touched has been degraded. First, these experts told the commander that we really didn’t need the roof over the generators as the generators don’t need shade. In the words of Bill Cosby’s Noah… Riiiiight! The very next day we overheated a generator – FOR THE FIRST TIME! Since then, it’s been a series of power outages as they attempt to “fix'” things that were working fine. Today they managed to short out the main switch box – twice, both times resulting in fires, melted cables, and no power during the heat of the day. They, of course, blame it all on the shoddy work done by the Afghans, but we had no problems of this type until they started playing with things.
At the going rate, it’s going to be a long hot summer.
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