Past is catching up!

[jonblair]

34 years ago, I was young, reckless, penniless. Had just bought my house, deep in debt,
and decided to enlarge the house for the arrival of first child. Built an extension. In order to
contain costs, did many things myself.....labouring for bricky, chippy, did all the plumbing
and yes....electrics. Have a degree in Electrical engineering, though no understanding of
wiring regs as such. Anyway, the installation has been trouble free all these years.
Now I have retired and have time on my hands and some money have been reading this forum and
am getting alarmed!. I will tell you what I did, and invite suggestions of what to do next.In my installation
the tails from the meter go into a standalone 30 mA RCD. The output from the RCD goes into an 8 way
consumer unit. This had spare fuseways, so I used one of the ways to connect to a secondary
consumer unit via a 10 mm 3 core cable. I added an extra 10 mm of earth cable. The cable is
protected by a 30 amp fuse. It has never blown. The secondary CU feeds two ringmains and
lighting for the kitchen extension and a utility/laundry area. I have tried to search this forum
in order to reassure or otherwise myself that what I have done is or is not acceptable,
but there is far too much stuff here. Besides, all I have read so far tells me I have done wrong!.
I am looking for concrete suggestions as to where I go from here!

 

[JohnD]

Stand by for a lot of people complaining that you use an RCD for the whole installation. Many will say it is unnecessary, and most will say that it introduces danger that your lights will go out unexpectedly, perhaps when you are going downstairs or working on a ladder.

Your old CUs are by now due for renewal, you could reasonably have a single big CU with either split-load and your sockets and outdoor circuits RCD protected, or if you have lots of money you could have several RCBOs.

However, with quite an old installation and probably quite a lot of updating and replacement, you might do best to have a recommended electrician who does high-quality domestic installation, to inspect and quote for updating and renewal. This is because you are (probably) not going to have the training and equipment to do your own testing, which is goimng to be needed, unless you want to use your retirement to do some study and exams.

I had a look at the work a householder can do himself, and although you can (should be able to) do it yourself and get your Local Authority to approve your work (like they would if you made structural alterations) there is a fair amount of evening-class work and test gear required. My own past history has some parallels, biggest prob is that there are some things I am not qualified to do, and having looked at the methods of testing required, decided they would be a bit too much of a job.

 

[dingbat]

It sounds considerably better protected than the majority of the housing stock in this country, including many built after the sixteeenth edition of the wiring regs was published.

Without an inspection it would be impossible to say whether what is there is how it should be, but there is no requirement for you to upgrade anything unless you are modifying circuits.

A trouble-free service life is a good thing, but you may want to consider getting your RCD tested properly (not just by operating the test button). There may be a reason it has never tripped!

You could also consider upgrading to a spit load consumer unit? To do this a spark will need to inspect and test each circuit anyway, so this should give you all your answers.

 

[jonblair]

Thanks JohD and dingbat for your comments. 34 years ago, it was permissible to protect the entire installation with one RCD. Indeed, at that time, ELCB's were the flavour of the day...RCD had only just been introduced as a safer alternative. I will take on board all the advice given so far...There is no way am I gonna study the regs, pass an exam....and invest in any testing equipment ....I have a sum of money put away and will finally splash out and get the job done properly...then I can sleep easy too....