We finally opened the mysterious box in the hall...

Triffle

Triffle

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... since we moved into our house about four years ago we've occasionally pondered what is underneath the painted wooden box high up in our front hall. Well, yesterday we finally took the plunge and unscrewed it, and this is what we found:

upload_2019-10-6_12-33-30.png


upload_2019-10-6_12-33-57.png



It's possibly quite sad, but I will admit to being quite excited when we found this (I'm odd that way!) :LOL:

But... I'd love to know what these things are? (I know they're to do with our electricity supply!) but precisely what are they? Cos I'm curious.


Our actual consumer unit and meter are elsewhere (partly in a small cupboard below this thing, but mostly in the understair cupboard which is across the hall from this thing).

Is it normal for these things, whatever they are, to be located some distance from the meter and consumer unit?

And also, is it ok that the wires shown above are not sleeved at all?

Final question (at least for now)... can anyone tell me how old these things are? We daren't get close enough to read exactly what the writing on them says, all we can see is that the middle 'thing' appears to be upside down judging by the writing on it.. which might say 440v ??:eek:??).

(No we haven't touched any of it by the way).
 
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the thing in the middle is a fuse (red wire)
The outer 2 are just junctions.

That is concentric cable I believe (at the bottom)


Normally it would be near the meter, yes.

It's rated to 440V, but will only be 240V


You could write on the outside of the wood "main fuse"
 
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AndyPRK said:
the thing in the middle is a fuse (red wire)
The outer 2 are just junctions.

That is concentric cable I believe (at the bottom)


Normally it would be near the meter, yes.

It's rated to 440V, but will only be 240V


You could write on the outside of the wood "main fuse"
Click to expand...


Thanks to all. Ok, a fuse, I see now. Still, any idea how old these would be? As I said, I'm very curious and want to know these things! :)

I'm reading through the Electrics Wiki part of the forum to increase my knowledge but when it comes to specific 'what is this' questions it's hard to find that info. :)
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
I would guess at late 50's early 60's from the cable being plastic, but the equipment looks older than that. The paint marks suggest they were replacements for something even older.
Click to expand...

Nice. I love the history aspect of all this stuff. :)

Good point about the paint marks actually... something else must've been there prior.
 
Looking at the marks maybe the old meter and fusebox was there and its been extended to a new low location.
The outer blocks if made by "Henley" are known as Henley blocks, often referred to on this forum.

I wouldnt say its really the Main Fuse, thats the one likely by your meter, if there is one fitted, if that newer one is sealed, then this old set up is the Dnos property and should be sealed, unscrupulous people could extract free electric from there.
The Dno may have even fitted a solid fuse link in the fuse carrier
 
333rocky333 said:
Looking at the marks maybe the old meter and fusebox was there and its been extended to a new low location.
The outer blocks if made by "Henley" are known as Henley blocks, often referred to on this forum.

I wouldnt say its really the Main Fuse, thats the one likely by your meter, if there is one fitted, if that newer one is sealed, then this old set up is the Dnos property and should be sealed, unscrupulous people could extract free electric from there.
The Dno may have even fitted a solid fuse link in the fuse carrier
Click to expand...

Thank you, good information there. I'm suspecting the whole thing was likely moved to the understair cupboard as there was more room there once more 'things' :) were needed. We do have a Henley block near our meter (well it has 'Henley' written on it and looks newer too) but I'm not sure if there is a Main Fuse near our meter.

I'll dig out the photos we took of the whole meter/consumer unit and see what I can find, or should I post those on here too?
 
Hope you don't mind a few photos :) there's not a great deal of room in the understair cupboard so we couldn't get one shot with everything on all at once.

Here's the Henley block - is this a fuse as well?:
upload_2019-10-6_14-29-19.png



Beside it is the meter:
upload_2019-10-6_14-30-20.png



Above those is the CU:
upload_2019-10-6_14-31-39.png



Up in the corner we have a transformer for our doorbells (I recognised what it was!):
upload_2019-10-6_14-32-37.png



And we have this separate CU and master switch for some of our storage heaters:
upload_2019-10-6_14-38-37.png


(There is another CU, without the accompanying master switch, in a cupboard in the hall - which serves the remaining storage heaters).


So... that should be it... is everything as it should be?


And what would we need to do to seal off the 'old' bit... glue the wooden cover so it can't be unscrewed, or get someone in to do something official with it?
 
333rocky333 said:
The outer blocks if made by "Henley" are known as Henley blocks, often referred to on this forum.
Click to expand...
... and, to complete the information, even when they are not made by Henley they are still commonly referred to as 'Henley blocks", both in this forum and elsewhere!

... a bit like 'Hoover' and 'Biro' etc.

Kind Regards, John
 
Triffle said:
And what would we need to do to seal off the 'old' bit... glue the wooden cover so it can't be unscrewed, or get someone in to do something official with it?
Click to expand...

Dont glue it, it needs to be accessible, not that you would need to really, a hinged door is the usual thing to do.
Its likely when Scottish power fitted the newer stuff they may have not even known it was there.
Is it a problem where it is, if so it may be worth asking Scottish power, its odd they would leave an unsealed set up like that, as they have sealed your new Isolater and i assume the newer Henley Fused cut out too.
I wouldnt advise you or even an electrician touch it as its likely supplied direct from the street.
 
333rocky333 said:
Dont glue it, it needs to be accessible, not that you would need to really, a hinged door is the usual thing to do.
Its likely when Scottish power fitted the newer stuff they may have not even known it was there.
Is it a problem where it is, if so it may be worth asking Scottish power, its odd they would leave an unsealed set up like that, as they have sealed your new Isolater and i assume the newer Henley Fused cut out too.
I wouldnt advise you or even an electrician touch it as its likely supplied direct from the street.
Click to expand...

Thanks... we screwed the cover back on once we'd had a look, so would that suffice (the cover is held on with two screws at the bottom) rather than a hinge?

Perfectly possible Scottish Power didn't know it was there... after all we'd lived here for 4-odd years and we didn't know!

(I was about to ask how you knew our supplier was SP then I realised it says so on one of the switches - :LOL:)

No it isn't a problem where it is, thankfully... it's high up in the hall and not in the way of anything. And no we have no intention of touching it... as soon as we took off the cover we realised these wires are all 'outside' (for want of a better term) of our CU and main switch so we treaded extremely carefully.


This is what it looks like now that the cover is back on (just visible top left, with the mains cable (concentric cable, now I've learnt the term on here :) ) coming in):
upload_2019-10-6_20-8-31.png
 
If your happy with it being there then i wouldnt worry too much about it, its been there long enough, screws are fine, at least if needed it can be accessed

Pay attention please:)
CONCENTRIC is one main core with a ring of outer cores usually EARTH
SPLIT CONCENTRIC is one main core, a ring of outer cores and ALSO a ring of Neutral cores

Whats that screwed to the Window frame, an old doorbell
 
D

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