On Fri, 12 Dec 2014 00:17:42 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Gabriel wrote:

This follows a five fold increase in 5 years of house fires starting in
plastic consumer units,

That's a rather dramatic increase and begs the question Why?

I can't imagine that the ordinary domestic load profile has changed
that much, at least not to the point of overloading. So that leaves:

A change in the plastics used to ones that melt/burn at lower temps.
A reduction in the average sparkies abilty to tighten screws
properly.
A change in the fire reporting that indicates an increase but there
hasn't really been one.

I go for the third ATM.

--
Cheers
Dave.