Owain wrote:
On Sep 2, 9:55 am, "ARW" wrote:
Apart from someone in Worksop has just phoned to say their fusebox
has caught fire.

It's the Lord's way of telling him he sholdn't be using electricity on
the Sabbath.

It's going to cost him.

Insurance job?

Doubt it. After all, his mate fitted the metal clad CU 4 years ago. Anyway I
did get the details of the needed MCBs and RCBOs and picked
http://www.screwfix.com/p/british-ge...-10-mcbs/49540
up on the way with a RCBO and a couple of 20A MCBs.

I swapped a metal clad unit with no RCD protection that had caught fire
(thanks to the plastic lugs that held the neutral bus bar in place and a
loose neutral on the ring circuit. As look would have it the circuit cables
ran surface mount down to the CU so I was able mount the new CU highter and
cut off the burnt bits of cable (with the downside that I had to replace the
tails as the cutout was below the CU) but as they were 16mm tails and a 6mm
earth I would have swapped them anyway

I decided not to test beforehand and just see what happened.

As expected all 3 RCDs tripped so I started fault finding. I have now fixed
all the faults bar three.

The first fault is a borrowed neutral on the landing light. For now the
lights are sharing one MCB.

The second is something to do with the boiler (pump at a guess). Now the
RCBO was feeding a fusebox next to the new CU and this fusebox is for the
garage circuits and outside electrics. So for a temporary measure I
installed a fused spur under the CU on a non RCD MCB and clipped a flex
across to re-feed the boiler (that is also in the garage).

The third fault is that there is no gas or water bonding. Actually that is
quite easy to do as both are in the gargage. I did not have any 10mm earth
on me and why charge double time to fit it when I knew I would have to be
going back later.

I left home at 10am and I arrived home at 15:30pm. So call that 5 hours
including the travelling and picking up the new CU on the way. I knocked
half an hour off as they made me sandwiches for dinner.

Call it £100 for parts and fuel and 5 hours @ £60 an hour and they have just
paid £400 for a brand new (and soon to be) 17th edition compliant CU.

Laying an proper nonRCD supply to the boiler, fixing the borrowed neutral,
bonding the gas and water and the testing can be done another day at £30 an
hour. Probably about another £250 or so. The insurance co would not have
paid for the fault fixing.

So all in all it's a £650 CU swap with most of the work carried out on a
Sunday at short notice. And they were delighted with the £400 price tag and
the £200 estimate to finish the work.

And when finished they will have a 10 year certificate that says the
electrics are safe.

BTW, they had a gas hob and she liked making tea which I liked drinking.