Just been asked to look into doing some work in this flat.
Hey, who needs a Consumer Unit anyway…..???!!!
Unbelievable….No CU
- Thread starter sunsno
- Start date
Just been asked to look into doing some work in this flat.
Hey, who needs a Consumer Unit anyway…..???!!!
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P
Paul_C
Pretty common in older properties. The original MEM unit with four fuses was probably supplemented by the second MEM unit to its left when additions were made later, followed by the very much newer Wylex in much more recent times (quite probably feeding a shower).
There are some rather thin cables hanging off that service fuse...
That the sort of domestic installation I was brought up on. I'm not sure when CUs, as we now know them, first came into being, but I suspect that it was late 60s or early 70s - but very many installations without them persisted for a long time after that.
I'm not aware of any regulation which actually compels one to have a CU or DB, in the normal sense. Indeed, in some situations it might still possibly make more sense to have multiple enclosures containing single protective devices!
Kind Regards, John.
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Interesting.....havent been at this game as long as some of you guys, so it was a new one on me.
Take the point about seperate protective devices, I guess no reason why not when you think about it !
But Ban All Sheds is right, those are cables are way too thin.
Oh well, will keep me busy.
Take the point about seperate protective devices, I guess no reason why not when you think about it !
But Ban All Sheds is right, those are cables are way too thin.
Oh well, will keep me busy.
They should be of a size that will carry enough fault current to operate a 100A fuse should a short circuit occur at the end remote from the fuse!
Which is a whole different thing!
Fault protection is very different to overload protection but may be provided by the same device.
An overload is an increase in current over the design maximum, which if not prevented would lead to the conductors running above maximum termperature
A fault is a low impedance short between conductors allowing hundreds of amps to flow and is usually over and done with very quickly indeed.
If we protect a cable against overloads its automatically deemed to be protected against faults.... but we might not need overload protection and we might have to calaulcate the cable size for fault protection. Or we might want to use a reduced CSA CPC
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Did you mean to write that? If that really were 'automatically deemed', we presumably wouldn't 'waste our time' measuring Zs or circuits with OPDs (i.e. virtually all circuits), would we? Or am I misunderstanding you?
Kind Regards, John.
But that installation hasn't only got single-device units.
And are you not aware that you can still buy, brand new, Wylex Standard Range boards with BS 3036 semi-enclosed fuses, and that:
a) they are still fully compliant with the Wiring Regulations
b) they are called "consumer units".
What point you are trying to make by saying "Hey, who needs a Consumer Unit anyway…..???!!!"?
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