B16 switch position
- Thread starter Noran
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It is common to buy a populated consumer unit, so very possible to have a B16 MCB or RCBO which does nothing, it is also possible that it has been switched off due to a fault, it is impossible to tell if it should be on or off.
Are any of them labelled as to what they do ?
With the B16 off, is there anything not working?
Boiler, heater, immersion heater, oven etc?
Boiler, heater, immersion heater, oven etc?
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The short answer is "it depends" 
Longer answer
IF there is something connected to it, AND it's not faulty, AND the user wants that something to be working, THEN the breaker needs to be turned on.
IF there is something connected, but there's a fault, THEN it will need to stay off until the fault is fixed.
IF the user doesn't want whatever is connected to be working (e.g. it's an immersion heater, but they normally use the gas boiler) then it possibly should be off - but normally there would be a switch somewhere rather than turning on/off at the CU.
IF there is nothing connected (see above about off the shelf CUs pre-populated with MCBs that might not be used) then it really doesn't matter - electricity won't leak out of the connections if there aren't any wires in them
So it really depends on what is connected and whether the user wants it to work. From here, with zero knowledge of the installation, we cannot tell.
Longer answer
IF there is something connected to it, AND it's not faulty, AND the user wants that something to be working, THEN the breaker needs to be turned on.
IF there is something connected, but there's a fault, THEN it will need to stay off until the fault is fixed.
IF the user doesn't want whatever is connected to be working (e.g. it's an immersion heater, but they normally use the gas boiler) then it possibly should be off - but normally there would be a switch somewhere rather than turning on/off at the CU.
IF there is nothing connected (see above about off the shelf CUs pre-populated with MCBs that might not be used) then it really doesn't matter - electricity won't leak out of the connections if there aren't any wires in them
So it really depends on what is connected and whether the user wants it to work. From here, with zero knowledge of the installation, we cannot tell.
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