With existing equipment available for the system we are getting close to being able to do that on an LV circuit basis, I can certainly see it on an individual substation basis quite easily
Pulling Main Fuse E-Petition
- Thread starter planemad
- Start date
With existing equipment available for the system we are getting close to being able to do that on an LV circuit basis, I can certainly see it on an individual substation basis quite easily
My understanding is that they want to be much more granular than that - individual streets, or parts of streets, with the ability to spare people with special needs for power, etc.
Getting back to the issue of the pulling of cutout fuses, am I the only person who is quite amazed that, in the 21st century, we still regard it as acceptable for unswitched 'cutouts'/'main fuses' to be installed? In any other context (e.g. a sub-main), we would surely laugh (or cry!) at the suggestion that the only means of isolation should be manual removal of a fuse from a live LV circuit, or that the only means of replacing a blown fuse in an LV circuit was to do so whilst the circuit was still live?
Kind Regards, John
Kind Regards, John
No. I find it incredible.
Thanks. I'm pleased to hear that (for once!) I'm not alone in my views!
Kind Regards, John
With you all the way, john.
Because BS1361 fuses are the best OCPDs.
Find me a device that's as small, cheap, reliable and has a high enough breaking capacity, and maybe then it would be viable.
Find me a device that's as small, cheap, reliable and has a high enough breaking capacity, and maybe then it would be viable.
Rang SSEPD today saying I wanted the supply isolated and could they fit an isolator. They told me they don't do this any more, but so long as my electrician belongs to one of the organisations in their list they could pull the fuse (NAPIT was on their list, didn't ask about the others as my electrician's NAPIT). They made no mention of any follow-up visit to fix seals.
I agree - for the application we're discussing. I would not suggest any alternative OPD - as you will realise, it's the apparent continuing 'acceptability' of the absence of a switch which amazes me.
I'm sure that a fully satisfactory switch-fuse could be produced (if one does not already exist), probably little, if at all, larger than current cutouts. Reliability is unlikely to be an issue for something operated so rarely, and cost could/would presumably plummet if they became the standard for domestic installations. Let's face it, the requirement would not be materially different from that of switch-fuses currently used to protect long meter tails, so we're not talking about frontier-breaking rocket science.
Kind Regards, John
Come on folk get serious
Lets say £100 material cost per cut-out
Lets say a similar amount to fit it (bearing in mind all the historic cut-outs will need changing to a compatible type
So on average £150 per cut-out
The DNO I work for has about 2,000,000 domestic customers
So that's £300,000,000 to do this work!
WHO PAYS?
The customer is who will pay!
So why should every customer pay their bit to make electrical contractors life easier?
What we have is NOT unsafe to us authorised folk to use, there has not been an incident involving one in this DNO for a few years.
But that is due to training and authorisation to do a job, not because folk want to step outside their present level of competency for other reasons
Lets say £100 material cost per cut-out
Lets say a similar amount to fit it (bearing in mind all the historic cut-outs will need changing to a compatible type
So on average £150 per cut-out
The DNO I work for has about 2,000,000 domestic customers
So that's £300,000,000 to do this work!
WHO PAYS?
The customer is who will pay!
So why should every customer pay their bit to make electrical contractors life easier?
What we have is NOT unsafe to us authorised folk to use, there has not been an incident involving one in this DNO for a few years.
But that is due to training and authorisation to do a job, not because folk want to step outside their present level of competency for other reasons
You're getting rather carried away with yourself - maybe you should re-read what I wrote. I'm not suggesting that there should be any cut-out changing campaign. I merely expressed my amazement that, in the 21st century (and, I'd say, also in recent decades) it is still apparently regarded as acceptable to install unswitched fuses as the only means of isolating an installation - when the same would be totally unacceptable in virtually any other electrical situation.
If you simply installed 'switched cutouts' whenever you replaced ones that needed replacing, or when you provided new supplies, then the chances are that the material costs would be little more than, and the labour costs no different from, the costs you are currently experiencing. ...and there would also be a gradually increasing saving in DNO costs (a saving which the DNO may, or may not, pass on to customers!), as the number of callouts to pull and replace fuses (if you ever get such callouts
) diminished!Kind Regards, John
Westie -
I find your attitude on this subject very puzzling and rather disturbing.
Who pays for all of your and your staff's health and safety equipment and do you object to it?
I find your attitude on this subject very puzzling and rather disturbing.
Who pays for all of your and your staff's health and safety equipment and do you object to it?
Interesting question!
I am employed by a DNO who is responsible, with myself for my health and safety and pays for that from their proportion of the unit costs of electricity.
What seems to being asked for is that the same source funds the costs of non-employees operating on equipment owned by the same DNO or changing/adding equipment to, for want of a better description, make their job easier. It does not make it safer as they should NOT be operating or interfering with that equipment.
If they are and admit it, they are in breech at present of H&S laws
What we have is safe, if operated by properly trained & authorised people. We only use the cut-out fuse to energise up to the customer's isolator(s). Whatever folk say they have seen, we have strictly enforced requirements to wear PPE, failure to do so is at the risk of disciplinary action.
We are trained if the fuse has operated to investigate why (as with John W2's recent quiz) it can be for diverse reasons and for no logical reason!
The present equipment works on the KIS system (Keep it Simple) anything above that will increase the risk of something going wrong and affecting customer supplies.
We on a day to day basis insert fuses up to 600A live in substations with low risk subject to using the correct equipment.
Unless a major project is brought into being there would only be a very slow accumulation of some other design which would make it worse as there would be confusion. At present it is simple, to put it bluntly "our property, don't touch!".
Going back to the 2,000,000 customers at the rate of 3/team/day to change them - work it out for yourselves
If you simply installed 'switched cutouts' whenever you replaced ones that needed replacing, or when you provided new supplies, then the chances are that the material costs would be little more than, and the labour costs no different from, the costs you are currently experiencing. ...and there would also be a gradually increasing saving in DNO costs (a saving which the DNO may, or may not, pass on to customers!), as the number of callouts to pull and replace fuses (if you ever get such callouts
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