2 consumer units?

[JP_]

Can you have two circuits / consumer units in one house?

I'm moving to an old bungalow, I saw that it has an old style consumer unit above the front door, maybe no RCD.

I will be building a living room and kitchen extension, and moving the main entrance. Could I get a new consumer unit added to the new entrance area, that will provide power for the new kitchen, living room and hallway, and then keep the old one running at the same time? The idea would be to then later on, once the first part of the build is complete, to rewire the house, using the new unit, and then removing the existing wiring and sockets after the rewire is complete.

All the old rooms will need renovating over time (probably full renovation with new plasterboard, ceiling board etc). and all electrics can go through loft (its a bungalow) so in theory, this should be doable? But is it possible?

Obviously, I'll be hiring an electrician for all the work, once I know what I'm doing!

7 days to moving day ....

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Can you have two circuits / consumer units in one house?

Yes.

I will be building a living room and kitchen extension, and moving the main entrance. Could I get a new consumer unit added to the new entrance area, that will provide power for the new kitchen, living room and hallway, and then keep the old one running at the same time?

In principle yes, but there may be non-trivial practical considerations over getting the incoming supply to the new CU.

The idea would be to then later on, once the first part of the build is complete, to rewire the house, using the new unit, and then removing the existing wiring and sockets after the rewire is complete.

All the old rooms will need renovating over time (probably full renovation with new plasterboard, ceiling board etc). and all electrics can go through loft (its a bungalow) so in theory, this should be doable? But is it possible?

"Over time" may turn out to be more of a pain than it's worth - biting the bullet and doing it all at once might be better.

Obviously, I'll be hiring an electrician for all the work, once I know what I'm doing!

You'll probably have little choice but to hire one (registered).

Find one now - when he can see the house he can give you proper advice on how the work should be done.

 

[JP_]

Yeah, maybe doing it in one hit would make sense. Thing is, we'll be living in the house and after the extension will have a spare bedroom, so can renovate one at a time, moving into each as its completed. I am thinking we could get a first fix when the unit is installed to lay the cables to each room above, and then connect them when ready? But yeah, will get an electrician to advise.

 

[Iggifer]

With regards to rewriting at least, it'll be much cheaper to have it all done in one go. You'll have to live with some ugly chases in each room but I think you'd struggle to find anybody who would want to rewire one room at a time, it'd be a nightmare

 

[EFLImpudence]

but I think you'd struggle to find anybody who would want to rewire one room at a time, it'd be a nightmare

It's not too bad in a bungalow.

 

[Iggifer]

It's not too bad in a bungalow.

Oops didn't see that. Yea not the end of the world in a bungalow

 

[ericmark]

I have two fuse boxes, both old Wilex and both fed from a box with two old RCD's. I would not do that today, at the time it was done you could not get consumer units with 2 RCD's today I would install a consumer unit with two RCD's and a space for some RCBO's and I would ensure the supply for fridge/freezer has it's own RCBO as I don't want that supply to trip.

Doing a re-wire over an extended time can cause problems, when my son stopped being a sole trader he had around 5 long term jobs where the owner would call him to do the next bit, some he managed to finish, one or two were never finished by him.

My mothers house had a wet room and kitchen rewired and completed, then latter she had a complete rewire except for those two rooms, because she has a consumer unit in the kitchen fed from the one under the stairs to two rewires are independent.

You need to plan out what you are going to do, and if your going to do a lump at a time you need to decide what will be done in each phase, in error my mothers kitchen lights were not done with kitchen, but included in the full rewire. That has worked out OK. But had the same happened with the wet room that would have been a real problem.

 

[phatboy]

Our place was done room by room, with a new CU fitted and a sub-main down to the old CU. It is a bungalow.

Wasn't too bad, and to help reduce interruptions to power whilst various rooms were renovated and rewired, we ended up with 3 ring mains - front rooms, rear rooms & kitchen, and 2 lighting circuits (better practise anyway).

Electrician was fine with it, loops of cable were left in the floor space marked up for the room they were to serve.

It took 19 months to get it all done and the remains of the old wiring removed, but we got there in the end.

 

[flameport]

Make sure that the new consumer unit is suitably large to have space for all of the new circuits plus extra.
The cost of a larger box/enclosure is trivial, but removing one which is too small and fitting a larger one is not.

 

[JP_]

Our place was done room by room, with a new CU fitted and a sub-main down to the old CU. It is a bungalow.
It took 19 months to get it all done and the remains of the old wiring removed, but we got there in the end.

This sounds a lot like what I am planning! I am hoping to less than 19 months, but you never know!

 

[phatboy]

This sounds a lot like what I am planning! I am hoping to less than 19 months, but you never know!

Well, the 19 months included the full renovation, so ceilings down, floors up, insulation, wiring, plumbing.... and most of it done in my spare time (where legally possible!)

 

[bernardgreen]

Can you have two circuits / consumer units in one house?

The snag with two consumer units is the need for a single point of disconnect. If there is an isolator switch directly after the meter than you have a single point of disconnect. If the meter feeds the two consumer units then you don't unless one consumer unit is fed from an MCB on the other consumer unit

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The snag with two consumer units is the need for a single point of disconnect.

Only if you deliberately decide to make it a snag by deliberately classifying two separate CUs and their two totally unrelated sets of final circuits as a single installation.

Avoiding that perversity and classifying what you have as two assemblies of associated electrical equipment having co-ordinated characteristics to fulfil specific purposes means that you don't need an isolator before the CUs.

 

[JP_]

Funny, as now I think about this (doesn't happen often) I realise I have 2 units in my current home - the main one in the house, and another in the garage, which comes off the main one.

 

[JohnW2]

Funny, as now I think about this (doesn't happen often) I realise I have 2 units in my current home - the main one in the house, and another in the garage, which comes off the main one.

If the second 'comes off the first', then you still have a 'single point of isolation' - i.e. if you switch off the main one, the secondary one is also isolated.

Kind Regards, John