harry wrote:
On Oct 6, 1:11 am, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
harry wrote:
On Oct 4, 4:32 am, "Roberts" wrote:
I was contacted by phone and told that my fuse box was over 40
years old and needed to be replaced. The company Electrical Safety
Group gave the impresion that they were linked to a energy
supplier. They came to the house and checked the wiring and left a
a list of things to be done costing about 800 on reading their
inspection report they say (in small print) at the bottom of the
page that they are not part of any public energy supplier. I am
beginning to think that this is some sort of scam. What do the
panel of experts think? Someone in this newsgroup must know more
than me
Thanks in advance
Robbie

It's possible your forty year old "fuse box" ideally needs replacing
however as a minimum you need to get alternative prices from
elsewhere and another opinion.

No-one here can tell you without actually seeing your installation
or detailed description/photos, there are lots of factors.

Things have moved on, fuses are no longer used, minature circuit
breakers are used instead. Some people have the fuse box changed
for a box with these instead. They are a bit safer. £800 would be
very expensive just to do this.

If your box is made by Wylex, (most were back then) the fuses could
be removed and they make/made circuit breakers that just plugged in
to repace the fuse carrier, about five minutes work.

How much safer are MCBs than fuses?

--
Adam- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Basically they react a little faster but fulfill the same function.
Less pox to restore and in the form of cartridge fuses you don't have
to buy any.
I suppose as they have moving parts they must be less reliable than a
fuse.

More important is the earthleakage circuit breaker (RCCD) which is
much safer then fuses but only reacts to faults to earth.

Earth leakage circuit breakers (ELCB) are no longer used. They are different
to RCDs (and all the other names for RCD such as RCCB). However I would say
that RCDs are the real life savers when used on socket circuits.

You can now buy MCBOs that do both, (ie detect both overload and earth
leakage faults), very expensive though. Special larger consumer unit
needed as they are "taller".

I was aware of them:-)

They are called RCBO's.

--
Adam