John used his keyboard to write :
However, when the iron is plugged in the socket in living room , with no
other major appliances on, the lights are still flickering occasionally. The
lights are on a different circuit to the sockets and the fusebox doesn't
appear to be warm. This wasn't noticeable before the meltdown. Is it possible
that the wiring has been damaged elsewhere as well?

The overload obviously caused damage to the cable where it terminated
in the fuse box, I wonder if the cables were properly stripped back to
good clean copper?

Another possibility is that other damage has been done at another
point, possibly an Henley joint block, the meter or where the tails
enter the the cut out. There might even be damage to an underground
cable joint.

None of the above problems should happen, if the jobs have/had been
done in a workman like way, with correctly rated fuses/MCB's in place
and tight connections.

Warm, is caused by a large current flowing through poorly made or
inadequately rated connections or cables. Flickering would be a symptom
of a poorly made connection irrespective of the loading upon it - or it
could just be normal volts drop due to the increased load as the irons
thermostat turns itself on and off. Volts drop is perfectly normal -
your lights will dim slightly as a load is applied, then brighten as
the load turns off, they certainly should not flicker.

Get the engineer back out, express your concerns to him and ask him to
recheck for problems.



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Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk