I broke the main fuse seal

[JohnW2]

Have there actually ever been any prosecutions for "pulling the main fuse" alone, I wonder?

Quite apart from anything else, the fuse will presumably have been 'pulled' only briefly, so the only remaining 'physical evidence' would be that the cutout seal had been broken at some point in time by someone - and I would have thought that it, if the accused person was denying responsibility for that, that a court would struggle to determine "beyond a reasonable doubt" who had broken the seal. If it got really silly, even fingerprints and/or DNA on the outside of cutout (or even on the seal) could not 'prove' that!

 

[robinbanks]

What about when you have a new consumer unit fitted - does the main fuse have to be pulled?

If you contact your energy supplier they will come and fit an after-meter isolator for you

I wanted to fit another electricity meter, just to check on the company's one

You can do this with a CT clamp based meter that doesn’t involve disconnecting anything. It will be accurate enough to “check on” the enerco’s meter

 

[Mottie]

If you contact your energy supplier they will come and fit an after-meter isolator for you

Is that a free service or must you pay for that?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Is that a free service or must you pay for that?

Some charge, some do it free, some charge for the actual isolator, some provide free. If you provide a suitable isolator, and they are changing meters anyway, they will do it for free whilst there.

Long ago, when they fitted my smarts, I mounted my own isolator, on the board and ready to connect. At some point, maybe years in the future, I was planning to replace the consumer unit, and new uprated tails. I only got around to that, in the past couple of years.

 

[ebee]

Last time I enquired in the old NORWEB area I think it was £12 to supply and fit an isolator . to come and make a temporary connection permanent say after a new consumer unit fitted it was ...... £12.
So the sensible thing was to request an isolator and allow them to fit it before you started any CU change/rewire etc.

A pal of mine fell foul of them cos they sent a stern letter demanding he removed a consumer unit fro "Their Board" and were charging him £12 to connect a consumer on a board he must supply himself.
He rang them and asked why they wanted to charge him and had not already connected the consumer unit as agreed.
They answered in a stern manner about he had no permission to mount his consumer unit on their board and he must remove it forthwith.
They suddenly changed tune and were extremely nice to him once he informed then=m that it was His Board not theirs and they had no permission to mount their meter on his board and they must come out immediately and put in their own board and meter and connect his consumer unit.
They then asked how big his board was and they asked his permission to mount their meter on his board.

Hahahaha it was a laugh.

They chaged from dogamatic high handed to can you be our friend please in the space of a couple of minutes.

 

[JohnW2]

Some charge, some do it free, some charge for the actual isolator, some provide free.

All true - and I think it's probably as much down to the individual workers (who can sometimes be influenced by tea and biscuits ) as to policy on the part of the supplier.

If you provide a suitable isolator, and they are changing meters anyway, they will do it for free whilst there.

I've sort-of experienced that twice (different properties and different suppliers). On both occasions they fitted an isolator for free at the time of a meter change, but on both occasions they refused to use the isolator I supplied but, instead' used an identical (Wylex) one 'from their van'