Consumer Unit Updated

I do a few of these a year. There are still a lot of consumer units (mains, fuseboards) that are still in need of updating to incorporate RCD proptection or in this case, as it's an old rewireable fusebaord, Circuit Breakers too. These old type fuseboards had already gone by the wayside by the time i started in 1988!

I've put a mains change page on here previously but this time i thought i'd take before, during and after pictures as i went.

As with all consumer unit updates it comes with a full test, inspection and certification of every circuit fed from that board with the certificates being good for 10 years from the date of testing.

It's usual to change the tails from the meter too but with this one i also had to upgrade the main earth bonding cables to the water and gas mains as the original earth wires had been too small. They were 6mm when they need to be 10mm.

In this instance i had enough length on the existing cables to keep it a neat job inside the unit. Often there isn't and i'm only able to be this neat when it's new wiring and there's been plenty left on the cables.

And wouldn't you have guessed it, i forgot to take the bloody 'after' picture.

Ah well, once you've seen one consumer unit lid, you've seen them all.