Fuse Board / Consumer Unit Upgrades and Installations

The consumer unit controls and isolates all electrical circuits in your home
Over time modifications to your home such as new kitchens, bathrooms, eletrical sockets etc may mean that your electrical system is no longer up to date. As a result it might not be capable of carrying all the load and amount of circuits it was designed for when it was originally installed.

What does your current Fuse Board look like?
Are the entire breaker spaces filled up?

There should be some spots for extra breakers. You never want to have a Fuse Board that has all the breaker spaces taken as it is possibly overloaded and unable to deal with new cricuits.

Do your lights dim when you turn on an appliance, such as a cooker or hair dryer?

This means you are possibly ‘maxing out’ your system. the load on the main switch is nearing its maximum. This also causes surges which could destroy sensitive electronics, computers, TV’s, stereos, etc.

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, or just generally have a concern about the condition of your electrical panel, call PB Electrics on 07810 792 066, and have a qualified electrician inspect your Fuse Board.

Often on findings from a Periodic Inspection, we find that two or more circuits have been wired into the same fuse / MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker) or do not have the correct rating of overload protection, leaving your home at risk to fire.The latest BS7671 regulations stipulate that all circuits must be protected by an RCD (Residual Circuit Device). Many homes don’t have an RCD, and this is crucial as it protects your home from and fires and potentially electric shocks.Since 2008 RCDs have to be installed on every cable / circuit in the home reg:522.6.7/8. BS7671 2008 IEE Regulations. They are fitted into every new type 17th Edition consumer units we install and must trip if more than 30mA of fault current exists (Potentially 100mA could be fatal so this trips out before that amount can be present). The RCD must trip within 200mS (0.2s).

The latest consumer units have MCBs to protect the circuits from overload i.e. if a cable is rated at 10amps then an MCB must be rated below that, so it will trip instead of the cable getting hot. Also the new consumers units have two RCDs for fault protection. The reason for having two is so the circuits (sockets and lights etc) can be split, and then if a fault occurs you don’t lose all the electricity in the house so you can see in the dark and the fridge can be plugged in.

The main tails and main earth are checked and updated if required and included in the price. All our consumer units carry a 12 month warranty and an Electrical Installation Certificate is issued on completion of the work.