On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 14:56:26 +0000, Andy Hall
wrote:

And for that matter, has anyone got any tales, good or bad, about the
Screwfix Garage Consumer Unit? Its a 40A RCD unit with two (6A and
16A) MCBs.

Is that enough or are you sure it will be enough for future
requirements.

I've got a similar model in my garage (not identical) with 2 RCD
protected circuits - 6A and 16A.

I just got thru wiring an electric fan heater in there today. Being a
3KW jobbie it's going to pull some 12A when operational. That leaves
4A or about 1KW before the RCD pops its clogs, which will compromise
some of my power tools!

Haven't thought about this problem before (I have to admit I assumed
it would be a 30A supply). I'm wondering whether a solution is as
simple as uprating the RCD, or am I going to have to consider other
alternatives?

Garage is fed from an armoured cable from the house - I'll have to
check this further to make sure of capacity but it looks to me to be
beefy enough to handle a higher load. I know the armoured cable comes
thru the house consumer unit 100A RCD because (with the circuit RCD
switched off) the 100A RCD tripped the house out when I chopped thru
the mains cable in the garage - presumably due to some small current
flowing between live and earth even with the circuit off.

PoP