On Thursday, 24 October 2013 08:05:49 UTC+1, charles wrote:
In article , Tim Watts

wrote:



[Snip]



Is your CU tidy inside?



In the worst case, you could replace your CU with a bigger one to give

you more space.



The trouble with replacing the enclosure is that you have the incoming live

& neutral to deal with. You can only isolate them by removing the

"compnay" fuse. Years ago, before 'privatisation', I needed to repace my

CU and arranged for someone to come and remove the company fuse. I said to

him that I estimated it was a two hours job, if he came back and and

reconnected me then, I could put the kettle on. He came back as suggested.

Would that work these days?

I replaced my CU in 2005. EDF said I booking slots were 'morning' and 'evening'. I booked a disconnect and reconnect* for the morning, and connected an isolation switch with dangling tails. When the guy came round, slightly confused by the work request, I explained I wanted him to disconnect the old CU and reconnect to the isolation switch.

He did it, but he was deeply unhappy about it, and came back in the evening so he could test it, which meant plugging in a socket tester. *ALL* he cared about was that I had phase and neutral the right way round (possibly what he was actually testing was that he'd connected them the right way round!).

As far as I can see, if I'd had the isolation switch connected to a CU mounted somewhere random (but legal), connected to a single socket, he'd have been perfectly happy with my proposed arrangement - so that's what I'll do next time, particularly because then I'd have power while working on the old setup.

* The hardest bit was actually booking it. After calling Powergen, then EDF, then Powergen, then EDF, I discovered the magic words 'disconnect' and 'reconnect', which enabled the person answering the phone to connect their brain to their fingers. They don't apparently have any idea what the words mean, so explaining what you want doesn't get you anywhere.