Wednesday 26 October 2011

How to change a consumer unit / fuse box?

Does anyone know how a DIYer like myself can replace the consumer unit in my house. I have an old fashioned fusebox at the moment.



I'm confident I can wire it up properly but I'd need to know how to turn off the supply to the house.



Any thoughts.
How to change a consumer unit / fuse box?
You will f**k up if you do this, to isolate the tails into your fuse board you have to cut and then open the meter which IS ILLEGAL if you arent working for an authorised person.

The cut outs are r at 240v 100/80/60A which will kill you on contact im not telling a unqualified potentially incompetent person how to do this job!
How to change a consumer unit / fuse box?
If you can't turn off the supply to your house then I think you need to get a qualified electrician to do the work for you.
You'll need counciling permission
If think that it might be worth ignoring the UK regulations and still do it yourself. Firstly you could have difficulty reselling your house if you cannot prove that the work was done by a qualified person. Secondly if anything were to go wrong and you tried to make an insurance claim the assessor could point out that you had broken the terms of your policy. He would just walk away. I could go on with lots of examples. Take the earlier advice get someone qualified.
I don't know why some people get it into their heads to attempt stupid things. The work you plan to do is illegal, not allowed and downright dangerous. I get so angry with people like you. I have lots of thoughts but they can't be printed here I'm afraid.
I think you will find it is now illegal for a non qualified person to carry out such work, any %26quot;accidents%26quot; will no doubt void your insurance. Use the services of a qualified Electrician
The UK building code now states that you need to either get a qualified electrician to carry out the work, or at least sign off the work as safe before you can turn it back on again.

If you do not do this, your home insurance will be invalid and you cannot sell your house until either is done. Either way, you can't change sockets in your kitchen these days without one of the above being done. My guess is, if you need to ask the question, you shouldn't be doing it.
You need to get a permit and call your local electric company to come and turn off your main. They will do the disconnect outside and will come back to re connect when you call them.

DO NOT TRY THIS WITHOUT A PERMIT AAAND POWER SHUT OFF!!!!!!
You will need a permit on this one. I strongly suggest that you get an electrician to do this work. If you make a mistake with the imcoming line, there is no fuse till you get back to the transformer and that is a lot of power to take to ground.



You will also void your insurance if you do the work without the permit.



It is a good idea, but hand this one off to a professional.
I am assuming you are in the UK.



The consumer unit is the property of your local electricity company. As such, you must not do ANY work at all to it.



It is dangerous to even consider doing something like this yourself. You are neither qualified nor insured to conduct such work. DIY on the mains electricity supply to your home is a seriously bad idea.



You should contact your local electricity company and request one of their engineers to come out and do the work for you. They will assess the equipment themselves and organise the replacement if they think it really is necessary to do so. Also, there will be no cost to you for this service.
Hire it done!
This is definitely not a DIYer project,first of all the power company will require a reason to disconnect and the finished job will have to be inspected, a licensed electrician is the only person allowed to do this change.Call an electrician!!
yes my thoughts are DON'T do it your gong to die. lol You must have a trained electrician complete this work.....
You can't begin to do this yourself you have no idea of what's involved.

Before a P registered electrician can even start on the job he will have to test your whole house electrics to make sure there are no other problems lurking in the wings. You need specialist equipment for this and know-how to use it and interprete the results.

That's why he spent years training to do this and had to pass exams on the way.

Leave it to the professionals, he will then leave you with a certificate to prove it has been done correctly. This can then be passed on should you intend to sell your property at a later date.

My advice to you is to get three quotes from known or recommended electricians.

Don't attempt it yourself you will only cost you more in the long run.
do not touch it.get a qualified electrician.under new regulations any damage to life or property will be your sole responsibility and you will be uninsured.
Keep your cottonpicking hands out... you will probably end up by setting the house on fire and insurance won't cover you for being a pratt, get in a man who is qualified and sleep well until you are ninety with no fear of the little known god of retrebutions comming and getting you and yours. ELECTRICITY BITES.......................
if you are in the uk you must use a part P registered electrician
Go outside. Do you see an electrical meter/hour counter. Big glass bowl looking thing. You need open the box its in and pull that out. Done power is off in your house. But allways double check to see if your safe. Keep house panel off when removing replacing the meter.
Don't try it yourself, its not hard if you know what your doing but the problem is you must break the electricity boards seals to remove the main fuse which feeds the consumer unit.
Changing a consumer unit is a fairly straightforward job providing you have some spare on the wires from all the circuits because you will find that a modern consumer unit with an RCCD will be wired differently than your existing one.



Having said that to complete the job you will need to have the electrical supply from the Electricity Board main supply fuse turned off, this is normally sealed. You can arrange for them to come along isolate the supply so you can do the job and then come back and reinstate the supply when you've finished.



The real problem you will face is that they will not re-instate the supply without a certificate from an approved electrician.



An electrician will probably do the job for about 拢300-00p which would include the new consumer unit