Service Fuse too small......

[studips]

hi forum!

i have a potential issue with my service fuse.

It's 60amp and about 50 years old - original to the house as far as I can see.

The house is being renovated and rewired to the current standards and that side seems to be going fine.

The trouble is that I've been toting up the amperage that the tenant might potentially draw and it looks like it could easily exceed 60amps at peak load.

The fly in the ointment is that the tenant is a chef and wants to bring his 30amp double oven along. I can go for low energy lighting and led downlighters etc, but what I don't want is the tenant blowing the service fuse.

Can anyone offer any practical experience as to the actual cost of having my electricity supplier (EDF) come in and upgrade the head for me?

will it involve the service cable being replaced? Is it likely that they will be able to come in and say 'yes, a 70/80/90amp fuse will be ok on this size cable'? has anyone here done this and what did it cost?

before anyone points out the dangers of messing with the service head, i'm well aware of them, so don't worry - i'm not going to go anywhere near it myself!

thanks for you time.

 

[hairyben]

contact EDF, they should do a site survey for free.

bad news is, although 80 fuses can and are used in many 60A cutouts, in all likelyhood they'll insist on a new cutout, or possibly want you to pay for a new service. some bartering may be necessary, if they turn up and go "oh yeah new cable that'll be £1500 please" it's worth argueing the toss with them as they do like to get the customer to pay for upgrading their own decrepid old cable.

 

[studips]

thanks fella, that nails it for me pretty well.

i'll see if the EDF guy fancies a nice cup of tea and chocolate digestive when he comes round

 

[Cremeegg]

EDF themselves are a complete pain to deal with. Their contractors Murphy are great. Give them a bell and they will upgrade both the incoming head and fuse to 100A no questions asked - well maybe a short questionnaire asking why you want 100A - but if you are slow at filling that in they will come round and do it without one anyway. All free of charge.

 

[jackfoley]

EDF themselves are a complete pain to deal with. Their contractors Murphy are great. Give them a bell and they will upgrade both the incoming head and fuse to 100A no questions asked - well maybe a short questionnaire asking why you want 100A - but if you are slow at filling that in they will come round and do it without one anyway. All free of charge.

hi there,

do you know who the contractors for NPower are for metering installs upgrade changes?

 

[studips]

EDF themselves are a complete pain to deal with. Their contractors Murphy are great. Give them a bell and they will upgrade both the incoming head and fuse to 100A no questions asked - well maybe a short questionnaire asking why you want 100A - but if you are slow at filling that in they will come round and do it without one anyway. All free of charge.

crikey, that's worth a try - would you have any contact details for murphy? their corporate site is a bit too corporate to drill down to something as specific as my needs

 

[Cremeegg]

Murphy wont do anything without a job number from EDF so get one logged with EDF on 0845 234040 - they'll send you a questionnaire asking you why you want 100A not 60A. Send that back then Patricia from Murphys will contact you - great service once you get past EDF. Murphys guys are striaght up - get in do the job and off to the next one - not even time for a cuppa in my experience.