Fuse Box Come Away From Wall

[musashi79uk]

My wife snagged a cable for the alarm system under the stairs where the fuse box and meter for the electricity supply is. I sorted the cable out and as I tucked the alarm cable in at the side of the fuse box, it came away from the wall. We had a rewire early last year and the electrician installed the fuse box which he secured to the plasterboard wall with just two screws. Anything I screw onto the walls (they're all plasterboard), I use plasterboard fixings.
As the work is over 12 months old, I'll assume its outside the electrician's guarantee. So will I need to call out another electrician to secure it or is it something I'm allowed to do myself? The only way I see I can isolate the fuse box from the supply is to pull the 100A fuse which doesn't a have a seal on as the electrician cut it last year to do the rewire.

 

[davelx]

Guarantee is irrelevant. The service he provided/work he carried out was not done with "reasonable care and skill" so you can call him back to fix it under consumer legislation.

 

[chivers67]

Get him back to rectify the situation, I think most trades people of any worth would prefer to rectify something like that themselves. If he doesn't you should have a certificate with test results and a relevant registration scheme. A consumer unit (I've called it that before the pedant on here posts some think like "it's not a fuse box" ) shouldn't be able to be pulled of a wall like that!

 

[musashi79uk]

He won't come back. You can guarantee that. We had a nightmare with him when he did the rewire - something I asked for advice from on here. When I complained about the damage he caused (after I'd paid him in full), he withheld our certificates and demanded an extra £715 as he wanted to charge extra for a bathroom fan and wanted to charge for a £500 discount he'd supposedly given us for the rewire.
Apologies for calling it a fuse box - I didn't mean to upset folk.
EDIT: After he refused to claim on his insurance for the damage he caused and tried to blackmail us for certificates, I managed to buy his old website domain name (which was displayed on all his paperwork) for £1.19 and put a nice little review of his work on it at ***************** so I doubt he will want to come back.

 

[davelx]

In which case you write to him telling him that if he will not return to rectify his substandard work you're going to employ another electrician to rectify the problem and look to recover from him through the small claims court.

 

[mattylad]

Forget all that, just get someone else to put it right.

It's a very small job and I would not expect the cost to go over £50 no matter what part of the country your in.

Posting photo's might help the conversation.

The car, the wife, the cat - oh and the consumer unit and the screws.

 

[Mr_P]

Get him back to rectify the situation, I think most trades people of any worth would prefer to rectify something like that themselves. If he doesn't you should have a certificate with test results and a relevant registration scheme. A consumer unit (I've called it that before the pedant on here posts some think like "it's not a fuse box" ) shouldn't be able to be pulled of a wall like that!

First thing I do when carrying out any type of inspection, especially when an EIC is needed, is try and yank the D/B (99% industrial so don't touch C/Us) off the wall. If it comes away, I'm not wasting any more of my time.

 

[333rocky333]

Posting photo's might help the conversation.

Photo from his previous post
Personally i would turn off the mainswitch and refix it myself

 

[mattylad]

Same here.
Using proper plasterboard fixings.

Very carefully.

But what about the pics of the wife & the car?

 

[davelx]

Forget all that, just get someone else to put it right.

It's a very small job and I would not expect the cost to go over £50 no matter what part of the country your in.

Posting photo's might help the conversation.

The car, the wife, the cat - oh and the consumer unit and the screws.

Then he gets away with it. SCC process is very easy, and the builder needs to taught that he can't get away with shoddy work.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Photo from his previous post
Personally i would turn off the mainswitch and refix it myself

Not the most tidy of jobs!

 

[chivers67]

Copper insulation to switches etc up to but not touching. I wonder how those cables enter from the bottom and a nice bit of tape holding the main earth in situ

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Copper insulation to switches etc up to but not touching. I wonder how those cables enter from the bottom and a nice bit of tape holding the main earth in situ

At least it is (was) level

 

[whistler]

Is it not a requirement that the cu is mounted on a wooden backboard? That's what my electrician told me when I had a new cu fitted.

 

[markyd1]

Forget all that, just get someone else to put it right.

It's a very small job and I would not expect the cost to go over £50 no matter what part of the country your in.

Posting photo's might help the conversation.

The car, the wife, the cat - oh and the consumer unit and the screws.

£50.......Get in the real world