Found these images on another site.

The electrician replaced the old consumer unit for £200, pulling the main fuse himself in the progress.



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[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 08-15-2005).]

This was done by an electrician!?!

Hi Ryan!,
Long time no see.
Interesting pictures, sorry that I had to prune them down a tad, as it wouldn't have been fair to those on a Dial-up connection.
Nice to see that the guy removed that nasty piece of TRS cable hanging over the top of the meter in the first pic.
This job obviously didn't have a lot of forward planning associated with it, judging by all the joints and the messy way in which the wiring has been just thrown in.
This could have been done a LOT better.

Whoa!!,
Just had a good look at the picture of inside the consumer unit.
Why are there black wires going into the top of the MCB (3rd from the left)?.
This is just a mess and I'd find it rather hard to believe that an Electrician would be so silly as to do work this badly.

Looks about normal to me!

I see a lot of this sort of "choc-block" extended wiring where a new panel is installed but there isn't enough slack left in the old cables to make the new terminations.


Well, black is now a phase color under the new system, but I can't figure it out either. The MCB is off and has no label on the panel.

Clearly the shower circuit is new (MCB immediately to the left of the RCD), and I assume that the large blue conductor on the left-hand neutral bar is part of that circuit.

There's also a smaller gauge blue wire going to the right-hand (non-RCD) neutral bar though. Where is the phase associated with that one? Could it be the brown wire laying directly in front of the incoming tails? Looks like its just taped up and not connected to anything though.

If one of those black wires was part of a new-style cable the gray could have been cut back and brown left spare I suppose. That doesn't explain the second black wire.

One of those pictures could be placed in a dictionary as definition of "mess" and "messy".

I can think of four things that are right about this installation:
1. There are MCB's.
2. The circuits are labled.
3. No live metal parts are exposed. (Currently, I will have to add. It looks like anything could come loose at any time. )
4. Ehhh.... Well, three things then.

Looking at the double blacks: Could it be that the installer ran out of "choco-blocks" and used the spare MCB? *horror*

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 08-15-2005).]

Quote:
Could it be that the installer ran out of "choco-blocks" and used the spare MCB?

Press here for fireworks display...

I think the blacks go under the MCB to the grey and the white T&E coming out the bottom, leaving the MCB unused.

That horrible possibility occurred to me too, but I tried to dismiss it as quickly as possible.

Ryan,

Was there any explanation with the photos?

The breaker in question actually has _two_ black wires attached to it...
and I think I found where the weird blue wire comes from... it is twisted and taped (with yellow/green tape) to one of the blacks, roughly above the RCD!

Another weird thing: even though it's supposedly new he used helluva mess of different breaker types!

http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29874

The person explains there.

Oh boy....... Reading that lot just confirms what a complete mess that job appears to have been.

By the way, does anybody else here have a dislike for Hager?

Just my $0.02 worth,
Personally I would have put the Main Switch at the other end of the DIN Rail, to save the Meter Tails from cluttering up the area between the N/E bars and the MCB tops.
Mind you, considering that this job only took 2 and a half hours to do, it's not really suprising that it looks so rough.
Paul,
Nope,
I've used them for a while and can't say that I've had any problems so far.
You could use worse.

That would have meant the installer having to abandon the supplied links from main and RCD to the neutral bars and running his own conductors instead.

Judging by the rest of the work, he probably thought that would be far too much trouble, if indeed the idea ever occurred to him at all!


Hager stuff just seems cheap and flimsy to me, at least the residential panels.




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-18-2005).]

Hager the Horrible?*

Alan

(* Apologies to the UK 'Sun' newspaper strip cartoon, which depicts a nasty Viking.)

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 08-18-2005).]

Ahh,
Paul,
I would never use a Hager enclosure unless it was a 2 or 4 pole box.
What I was talking about was the Hager line of MCB's and associated equipment, with respect to RCD's and the like.
I know what you mean with respect to thier plastic Consumer Units and so forth, I've snapped the plastic DIN Rail off in them fitting the Circuit Breakers
I prefer to use something local like PDL or if I have the chance,I get a custom Switch-board made by a company like Vynco,
at least they give a pan unit with real metal to connect to and they come with the board all fully set up.
Good on them guys at Vynco!!.
I don't like plastic, cheap rubbish.