Dangerous circuit board?

[forestboy]

Hi everyone. I had you chap around - a qualified electrician - to sort a plug socket in the kitchen. He works for a big electrical company but does his own work out of hours as well. When he finished the job and went to turn the power back on at the he told me that the circuit board was dangerous that I needed to pay for a condition report and that I needed to have some emergency circuit breakers put in there and then that I needed to have the whole circuit board replaced. All this just by looking at it? I've attached a picture. I am in trade myself so I know it is easy to flummox customers with technical speak into doing jobs that they don't really need. Circuit board you see was put in when we had an extension built 10 years ago by a well-known and respected local company. Is he right am I being over cautious yet? We have had no electrical problems at all. And I have a test and installation document from the original installation. My neighbour is a recently retired electrician and he swears blind there is absolutely nothing wrong with i

 

[Echo the husky]

There was a recall a few years back of certain types of Wylex MCB. See here (click red text at top of page) The codes are printed on the side of the MCB so have to be removed to check, a job for an electrician. Looking at the outside I can't see anything immediately wrong. Did he give any reasons or explanation?

 

[John D v2.0]

I'd be more inclined to trust your neighbour, but if you're concerned in any way, get the first electrician to put in writing what the suspected issue is, then come back to us (or another electrician)

He might just mean the board is not up to the standard for new installs, as it doesn't have RCD protection on all circuits. That isn't really an issue at all.

 

[JohnW2]

There was a recall a few years back of certain types of Wylex MCB. See here (click red text at top of page) The codes are printed on the side of the MCB so have to be removed to check, a job for an electrician. Looking at the outside I can't see anything immediately wrong. Did he give any reasons or explanation?

I suspect that's probably 'too clever' an explanation of what the electrician was thinking.

My suspicion is that he was reacting to the fact that the CU has only one RCD, with most circuits not RCD-protected. However, as you know, there are probably millions of CUs like that still satisfactorily in-service. There is nothing more 'wrong' (let alone 'dangerous') about a CU of that time then there was when it was installed and, of course, there is no requirement to bring existing installations up to the standard of current practices/regulations. There are plenty of much older/'worse' CUs in service out there!

Unless the electrician discovered something which is not apparent from the photo (maybe the OP should ask him to be specific about his concerns?), I would say that the second electrician is closer to the truth by saying that there is 'absolutely nothing wrong' with it, and that the first electrician should probably be ignored.

Kind Regards, John

 

[forestboy]

Guys that is all really very useful indeed. Thank you very much it is much appreciated

 

[ban-all-sheds]

He works for a big electrical company but does his own work out of hours as well.

He may have very little experience of domestic electrics.

Or he may have a great deal of experience of the big electrical company getting their big commercial customers to stump up for extra work by misrepresenting what's actually required....

 

[ericmark]

It is easy to pedantic when looking at old installations, but the only thing which I can see which may not comply is you may be able to remove the blanks without a tool, however I can't really see why anyone would try?

 

[mfarrow]

Nobody has mentioned that because this CU is made of plastic, it carries a high risk of causing a major house fire if something inside overheats and starts burning.

Not that this isn't true of plastic swiches/sockets/showers etc, but nevertheless the regulation is there!

 

[Iggifer]

Nobody has mentioned that because this CU is made of plastic, it carries a high risk of causing a major house fire if something inside overheats and starts burning.

Not that this isn't true of plastic swiches/sockets/showers etc, but nevertheless the regulation is there!

But not retrospective. And I think you’re being slightly over dramatic. There is a risk yes, but you have to weigh that up against the number of CU fires.

 

[JohnW2]

But not retrospective. And I think you’re being slightly over dramatic. There is a risk yes, but you have to weigh that up against the number of CU fires.

From what I know, I think your "slightly over dramatic" is probably a serious understatement. It doesn't seem that many people outside of the LFB really believe that this wide-ranging new regulation was really 'necessary', particularly when one factors in the increased risk of electric shock (for those 'tinkering in a CU'), not necessarily 'protected' by an RCD, that surely results from surrounding the innards of a CU with earthed metal.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Maybe those who write the regulations should be forced to compensate people for unnecessary expenditure on new editions, new exams etc, if it turns out after a period of time that there's no evidence that the changes were beneficial.

 

[stillp]

It doesn't seem that many people outside of the LFB really believe

I think there's an unnecessary letter 'm' in that statement.

 

[JohnW2]

I think there's an unnecessary letter 'm' in that statement.

Indeed - I should have typed "(m)any". I would be reticent to remove the 'm' completely, because "there's always one"!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Maybe those who write the regulations should be forced to compensate people for unnecessary expenditure on new editions, new exams etc, if it turns out after a period of time that there's no evidence that the changes were beneficial.

Given that one would probably be hard-pressed to demonstrate a significant benefit of a high proportion of the regulations introduced in the past 50 or so years, they might be pretty poor by now if that were done!

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

And your point is?