Consumer unit - tight squeeze

Lisavx · 26 Jul 2019

Just looking for some general advice... we're looking to add some outdoor electrics to a new shed / garden room (lights and sockets) and had an electrician out to quote today. He said that he didn't want to do the work as there was no room for new tails. We have solar panels and and EV charging point so theres a consumer unit for each of those. He said that even to rejig things wouldn't give us enough room. Is there a solution to this or do we need to abandon our shed plans?

IMG-20190726-WA0020

Lisavx
26 Jul 2019

Front on

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Lisavx
26 Jul 2019

.

20190726_165948

Lisavx
26 Jul 2019

Car charger consumer unit

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Lisavx
26 Jul 2019

Main board

flameport · 26 Jul 2019

Correct in that there is no room there.

Solution is to dispose of that mess and have a single new consumer unit fitted, which would have space for everything there and any new circuit(s) that are required.

Lisavx · 26 Jul 2019

flameport said:
Correct in that there is no room there.

Solution is to dispose of that mess and have a single new consumer unit fitted, which would have space for everything there and any new circuit(s) that are required.

Would an electrician be able to move the solar panel and car charger into one unit? The one we saw today wouldn't touch either of them, citing that it was a confined space and he wasn't qualified to touch the solar. We'd prefer it all in one new spec unit but are struggling to find anyone to do it. When we had the car charger installed, they insisted on putting in their own unit in.

flameport · 26 Jul 2019

Yes - all 3 of those can go into a single unit. The car charger, the solar and the MEM board with the other circuits in it.

Those 2 smaller things have been fitted because it wasn't possible to fit them in the MEM board, and presumably those installing the car and the solar were only there to do those specific things.
Adding a smaller separate unit is the quickest and cheapest way for them.

Lisavx said:
The one we saw today wouldn't touch either of them, citing that it was a confined space and he wasn't qualified to touch the solar.

Find someone else.

Strange arrangement with the 'solar' unit - it has 2 MCBs inside, 16A and a 6A.

Lisavx · 26 Jul 2019

flameport said:
Strange arrangement with the 'solar' unit - it has 2 MCBs inside, 16A and a 6A.

The 6A is an unused spare way as far as we're aware, the car charger fella wouldn't use that either when we suggested it.

Thanks for all your advice. Definitely a way forward now once we find someone willing to do the job. Cheers

jj4091 · 26 Jul 2019

I've no experience of working on solar or car chargers but you have spare ways in the Henley block so I would not have thought adding a 2 way garage consumer unit would have ben a problem. Did the electrician say anything about the size of the main fuse or existing loading on your installation & the load you are hoping to add?

Lisavx · 26 Jul 2019

jj4091 said:
Did the electrician say anything about the size of the main fuse or existing loading on your installation & the load you are hoping to add?

He didn't go in to detail, he just said that trying to fit extra tails in may start a fire! Maybe a solution would be to leave the solar stuff and combine the car charger CU (7kW) and main CU into a new one? The solar installation seems to put a lot of electricians off.

In the shed / garden room, we were hoping for 2 light fittings and 4 double sockets with the possibility of an outdoor socket too.

DetlefSchmitz · 26 Jul 2019

'Electrician' sounds out of his depth. It's not a pretty setup; but jj4091's suggestion - and with 'garage CU' to right of EV box seems practical and safe. And avoids compromising the solar and EV arrangements.

JohnW2 · 26 Jul 2019

Lisavx said:
In the shed / garden room, we were hoping for 2 light fittings and 4 double sockets with the possibility of an outdoor socket too.

The number of sockets isn't really the issue - the important question is what you anticipate will (or might) be plugged into them.

Kind Regards, John

chivers67 · 27 Jul 2019

Looks like there's space under the Eaton Memshield board if the tails were re-routed slightly too.

Adam_151 · 27 Jul 2019

Board change is best option, the problem is that it could end up wrong if the contractor doen't think it through with respect to the Solar and the EV.

The solar doesn't want to be on the same RCD as anything else, it possibly wont't even need an RCD, but that depends on how cable is installed.
The EV does require an RCD, and if memory serves it should be double pole and at least type A, and again shouldn't really share RCD with anything else.

We are starting to see some manufacturers produce type A RCBOs (many being small factor) but only one of the major brands I can think of breaks the neutral as well

Colin Brenton · 27 Jul 2019

Personally (I'm not a sparks, just an electronic engineer, so am braced for the flack!) if it were my place I'd ask to have the MEM box and the EV box replaced with a new RCBO board which has a couple of spare ways in it.

Get that done by a sparks, and get them to hook up the solar sub-board to it as they see fit. Then use the spare ways to supply an SWA to your outdoor building.

Not sure how the earthing would be handled for the EV, however... See what they say I guess.

HTH,
Colin

OwainDIYer · 27 Jul 2019

The henley block is 2 x 5 ways. Only 4 ways are used. It's a bit messy, but another consumer unit can be added, assuming the 'single point of isolation' for a domestic installation is ignored.

seasickstevie · 28 Jul 2019

OwainDIYer said:
... assuming the 'single point of isolation' for a domestic installation is ignored.

That's the thing that's been ignored so far - and likely to continue that way if an extra small CU is installed off the Henleys.

DetlefSchmitz · 28 Jul 2019

As everyone knows, the term 'installation' is ambiguous. There is no real reason that (e.g.) the PV should not be considered as a separate installation.

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Consumer unit - tight squeeze

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