Consumer unit upgrade - thoughts on work.

dishman · 23 Mar 2021

I have a small apartment. I decided to bring the consumer unit up to the latest regs.

Just wanted an opinion on what the electrician chose to do.

It is an E7 property and had two consumer units. The main consumer unit fed the secondary unit which was for the e7 heaters.

The main consumer unit had a breaker for the second consumer unit it seems.

After the work, this is the arrangement.

As you can see they replace the main consumer unit. But retained the secondary.

The new main one is all RCBOs.

I guess I did not expect the second unit to be retained. The quote made no mention of it.

It also seems the breaker to isolate the second box has been removed. I assume it was potentially redundant with there being a breaker on the second box anyway.

Thoughts?

Aragorn84 · 23 Mar 2021

seems a bit... naff to me?

Often in E7, the second board would have its own feed from the meter, which switches on when the system is "off peak". If thats the case, it shouldnt have been fed from the main CU at all?

If theres some alternative switching arrangement (eg timers on the heaters themselves), then it could all be in one board. You would really need to see what that 40A breaker was doing, and how the off-peak switching is controlled.

flameport · 23 Mar 2021

It looks like half a job done with the cheapest materials available.
Whether that's a problem or not depends on what was actually quoted for.

It would have been more usual to replace the whole lot.

dishman · 23 Mar 2021

The quote was simply to replace with metalclad fuseboards (plural) and bring up to latest standards including RCD and MCB protection.

This company was highly recommended and well known, had all the accreditation, and conducted an ECIR before hand to identify any issues.

securespark · 23 Mar 2021

Could you anonymise the report and post it here please?

dishman · 24 Mar 2021

ECIR report.

dishman · 24 Mar 2021

SUNRAY · 24 Mar 2021

Aragorn84 said:
seems a bit... naff to me?

Often in E7, the second board would have its own feed from the meter, which switches on when the system is "off peak". If thats the case, it shouldnt have been fed from the main CU at all?

If theres some alternative switching arrangement (eg timers on the heaters themselves), then it could all be in one board. You would really need to see what that 40A breaker was doing, and how the off-peak switching is controlled.

My managing agent has a single point of isolation in their T&C's, so when I replaced this:

Sorry about the low res pic. left isolator and 3 MCB's E7, right isolator and 5 MCB's 24hr.

I took the feed to the teleswitch from the load side of the isolator and did away with the henley.

securespark · 24 Mar 2021

dishman said:
ECIR report.

Thanks!

Can't read it on my phone screen. When I get near a PC, I'll have a good gander and will comment.

dishman · 24 Mar 2021

In addition to the above, from what I gleaned from using the system. The whole supply switched to E7 via a teleswitch next to the meter. But, the storage heater and immersion circuits only activated on E7.

They seemed independent. They get no power during non-E7hours.

dishman · 25 Mar 2021

Would it be considered rude to ask an electrician to include in the quote what brand consumer unit and MCBs they would use in the quote in future?

As I said, this guy had a good reputation locally, and had been trading for a long time. I expected an above average job. I did not pay bargain basement price for the size of the job (I don't think).

Yet again I find myself a bit disappointed that seemingly such a budget approach has been undertaken.

I mean, the outcome I guess is that the set-up is now safer than it was before.....but I still can't help feeling a bit disappointed.

plugwash · 25 Mar 2021

No, I don't think it's unreasonable to specify quality established brands for important components of your installation.

Of course knowing what those brands are can be tricky for someone who is out of the loop.

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Consumer unit upgrade - thoughts on work.

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