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Posted By: pauluk Irish meter - 05/12/03 05:14 PM
Some more photos from DJK in Ireland:

Quote
Found 2 more pics of interest to the board.

Irish Electricity meter dating from the late 60s - early 70s:
[Linked Image]
[Linked Image]

ESB domestic single phase 220V meter dating from the late 60s/early 70s. Mounted in a recessed meter box on the exterior of a house. The cables exiting through the top on the consumer side would be illegal these days. The ESB only allows access through the channels at the bottom for fire safety reasons.
Posted By: Trumpy Re: Irish meter - 05/13/03 05:35 AM
Djk, Paul,
Thanks for the pics!.
We still have a HUGE number of these Ferranti meters in current use over here.
Are they made in Italy?.
We also have a lot of English Electric(brand-name) meters in use over here too on older installations.
Newer installs, generally get a grey coloured ABB meter for single and 3 phase installations.
Posted By: pauluk Re: Irish meter - 05/13/03 08:04 AM
Dave,
Any idea what rating service fuse is protecting this installation? The meter tails and feeder into the house don't look all that large.
Posted By: Texas_Ranger Re: Irish meter - 05/13/03 10:33 AM
In Austria all wires would be run behind the board and only come through holes behind the terminal cover. And we don'
t have these nice warning tags, only a small tag, stating the date of meter installation, meter number and initial reading, plus the siganture of the guy who sealed it. If the meter was only replaced there's also number and last reading of the old meter on it.
Looks like 4 or 6mm2 to me. 35A Diazed? or only 25?
Posted By: djk Re: Irish meter - 05/13/03 02:37 PM
They look a lot thinner than they are in that photo.. unlike people on TV they seem to have lost 20lbs [Linked Image]

I think the fact that they've used individual cables without the grey sheathing makes them look thinner but on close inspection they're pretty substantial at least as thick as my little finger.

The service is actually 60 - 80amps, probabally 60..

As for the type of fuse, have never had the opportunity to see one of those black boxes opened up. I don't think it's diazed/neozed.. I think it's just like an oversized cartridge fuse.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 05-13-2003).]
Posted By: SvenNYC Re: Irish meter - 05/13/03 02:59 PM
Does anyone put in a knife switch (or other type of cut-off) before the meter, or after the meter in order to cut off power to the house if you need to work in the panel?

Would seem safer than just yanking the fuse out of a hot circuit...reduces the danger of arcing, I'd guess.

I currently forget whether the knife switch goes before or after the meter...

By knife switch I don't mean one of those open-blade ones, but there is a type where the blade is completely enclosed.
Posted By: djk Re: Irish meter - 05/13/03 03:09 PM
All newer ESB meters have a full double pole isolator on the bottom.

You litterally have a situation where you've got:

Fuse - Meter - Double pole isolating switch - (power company end) The idea being that the power company or electricians can fully and safely isolate the supply. I remember seeing one system where throwing the main switch on the distribution board left a circuit wired on a sub-panel live!

going to --- double pole isolating switch - neozed fuse (63amps usually) --- RCD --- MCBs..

Putting a switch before the meter wouldn't be desirable from the power company perspective. You could isolate the meter, bypass it and turn the power back on!

A tad over specified but no shortage of ways of isolating it !

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 05-13-2003).]
Posted By: Trumpy Re: Irish meter - 05/15/03 09:52 AM
djk,
I wouldn't say this system is over-specified, we use the same system here in NZ, except that the fuse is usually an HRC
BS 88 type in a PoCo sealed Pillar box (or up on a pole in an O/H installation).
The main switch, does not isolate the Metering equipment over here either, as only Authorised people have access to them.
Them cards on the meter-seals give a pretty good warning about tampering with the meters, We could do with having the same sort of cards over here!. [Linked Image]
Posted By: djk Re: Irish meter - 05/15/03 02:57 PM
Trumpy just to clarify: it goes thru the following:

Sealed Fuse
to
Meter
to
Isolation switch
to
Consumer Unit Main isolating switch
to
Main Fuse (Removable Neozed on the panel)
to
RCD
to
MCBs
to
Fused plugs !
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