Thanks for the reply. I phoned up EDF our supplier and they agreed to
come out and inspect, which they did within 1 hour! I was very
impressed. The engineer agreed that the earth wire was a bit suspect,
but more importantly the MICC cable to the meter should now be replaced
as it was so old. They are now arranging to connect a brand new cable
all the way to the meter free of charge.

He also recommended that I upraded my consumer unit to include RCD
protection. Currently, I only have one RCD circuit which I installed,
that is used to supply my laundry/ shower room.

He reckons that for safety every circuit should be protected by an RCD
as in his 30+ years experience he has known about deaths caused by
people working on lighting circuits as well as mains circuits, but
acknowledges that this is not in the current regs. The main issue here
would be the cost of doing this via separate RCBOs instead of one RCB.

Has anyone got a view on this, apart from the cost I think it would be
a good idea. Maybe the only circuit I would not want on an RCB would be
my alarm and freezer. Or are there problems with triggering on
immersion heaters?

Finally, as I understand the regs kitchens should now definitely be
protected by an RCD. Do people run a separate ring or spur purely to
supply their freezer in the kitchen, presumeably this needs to be hard
wired to prevent people plugging things such as hedgecutters into it?

As they are coming to do the replacement in the next few days I was
thinking of connecting my CU to the meter via a 100A DP isolation
switch, as at the moment neither the meter or main fuse have seals on
them, which won't be the case after they have done the work on the
connection. Does anyone have any information on whether this is
allowed, it will make it a lot easier if I upgrade my CU (obviously
before 2005 and part p!)