the owner of this domestic dwelling is having their fuse box changed or we could call it a
consumer unit or the trip switch box at the bottom of the stairs and we can look at some
of the reasoning behind changing that board throughout this video the first one being the
customer wants to extend the wiring system by adding a home garden office a hot tub
and possibly photovoltaic cells as well and with a quick look you can see within the board there
aren't enough spare mcb's to facilitate these new circuits what they could do is introduce a board
here by the side or underneath but as it's in a pretty main area within the house they've decided
to replace the board itself we will also see what other benefits can be had by changing the board
it would be metallic additional protection offered by rcds as well as the introduction of a surge
protection device we're waiting for matt from mj electrical services to arrive and when he
does arrive he needs to confirm the wiring system that's buried within the fabric of the building
is suitable for a change of board so let's wait for him to come and see that process
so he's arrived max joined us again from MJ Electrical Services matt installed an EV
Tesla charger that we saw out on site but today you're going through the process of upgrading this
consumer unit or fuse box whatever you're going to call it now i might have misunderstood in the
order in which you're going to do this process just talk us through how we've got to this stage
and what the customer is going to get next yeah no problem so the customer got in contact with
us and as they're looking to make a few upgrades to the property right they've got an external log
cabin going in solar pv and a hot tub and so we're looking at either putting a separate sub board in
but we advise the customer that the the board is in compliance BS7671 right
um due to only having a split load board so we've come to the conclusion we're gonna
upgrade the board we did some primary testing when we came here on the original site visit right
and did a visual inspection uh so you were taking socket friends off light switches fronts off you
were doing maybe some confirming that the earth's in place in different areas and some
some plug-in live testing is that right that's it yeah so that's really important that's done and
sometimes customers miss that bit out but it's not just a physical case of paying for and replacing
the fuse box that actually is a lot of other work yes you talked about not having compliant with
bs7671 yeah the boards now are not plastic they're now metal aren't they correct and there's a lot
more we call it um earth fault protection when we offer by rcd's introduced agreed
they also went through and you had a discussion with them about other things in the property
that because this was 15 years ago in store what other things would you suggest in need of
replacing so on the original visual inspection we had a look around we noticed that the smoke
detectors expired yeah the manufacture usable date red look around another thing
we should check on the visual inspection is bathroom lights make sure they're ip rated
um these have been recently replaced so that's not an issue so that's something to bear in mind
so the customer wants an upgraded consumer unit because of more circuits going in
great gives you a golden opportunity to upgrade to the latest standards which is great but there's
other incidental costs isn't that yes and in some maybe older properties maybe that includes maybe
bonding or putting a green and yellow wire to the gas water oil etcetera yeah you're in a fortunate
position this time you've got something in your hand there matt what have you got yes we've got
the previous tessa which is uh which is rare the original domestic installation certificate so
that's good so when you give a new certificate out it's really important that they keep that
certificate as well isn't it correct yeah and this is great for us because we can check the readings
against the original installers and just make sure they haven't deviated from that and we've
still got good readings okay so you're now going to change the board after you've changed the board
you're going to do a full electrical installation certificate yeah that means test all the circuits
just to prove that yeah so as as we're installing the board we'll be doing our dead test so we'll
be testing the continuity all the circuits and then we'll get it lightened up and do the live
tests around the property okay let's me matt get to work so while you're doing the scary
bit there matthew of uh moving the cables around no power no boyfriend imagine a customer at this
stage would be a little bit nervous yeah what's your thinking on domestic surge yeah so we offer
surge a standard on all our boards the way we sort of describe to the customer is that
the surge device costs around 50 quid and it goes towards protecting your tv if you ever
have any transient overvoltages so it's a bit of a bit of a no-brainer really yeah and the
tv could be you know 500 thousand it protects all the electronic equipment yeah yeah so good
nice well worth doing yeah so yeah easily uh connecting up the conductors now obviously a
lot of pride goes into this stage here you've got a a formula in order in which you're doing map
yeah so we're just working our way from the left hand side back to the right it's just this is a
bit of an awkward one quite a few cables coming through one entry hole here right um but yeah it
allows us to dress it in as neat as we can there so and i notice you've left some spare breakers
in there for these extended circuits in the future that's it yeah yeah so we've got a 40 amp
32 and a 16 we've put in there just for which is a good touch I'm not expecting Wylexx to stop
this range any time soon but it gives it then if it might even be you coming back to do these
extended circuits but it means that the brake is already populated in the board exactly that yeah
so it's part of the testing process underway now then i see you're bailing out the end of the ring
final circuit we are yet so far we've got one ring at three so okay in the right direction later on
we can continue that test on but yeah i said at this point it's it's worth confirming at least it
goes out and comes back we're carrying on with the testing process now as part of the certification
which test you're carrying out now for me matt so we're carrying out the air fault loop impedance so
we did some testing yeah yep really important this is the bit that I would imagine if, somebody
was coming in just changing the board and leaving having taken payment they're not going to take the
time to do all these and register that certificate are they they're not or even have knowledge of
what the readings mean yeah there we go we've got a good cd read in there happy with that
so you're busy typing away now and that what's the stage in the process we're doing now so i've just
raised the electrical installation certificate um so we're just populating it here starting off the
customer details working our way through to the test results okay and this will be emailed off
to the customer as well as a copy for yourself it will yeah is there anywhere else it needs
to be sent you mentioned somewhere earlier on that needs to be notified too yeah so we will
register the job with local building control uh through an NAPIT portal and that just takes the
certificate reference number rather than the natural certificate itself so we've seen you on
your laptop so that's a modern electrician i would suggest and now we're seeing you doing some more
testing these are things that people probably don't realize have got to happen are they when
they have their fuse box changed no so just talk me through the over current protection devices
that we've selected here and why you think they're such a good idea and why you recommend them yeah
not a problem so we've gone with our RCBO's here and so each individual breaker here has RCD
protection built into it right um advantages of this over a split load board yes is the fact under
your conventional RCD split load board you'll have an RCD main switch controlling four or five
circuits right and in the instance that there's an air fault and when that operates you'll lose
half your board which could be half the sockets half the lights your cooker and it could just
be a problem with your lights right with rcbo protection and if you have a fault on one of these
circuits just an individual circuit breaker will turn off so a it narrows down where default is and
b it means you're not without half the electricity in your house okay so so that's the earth leakage
the protection offered by this individual circuit breakers and RCBO's just tripping off that's
really good now can we level up the protection is there another stage beyond fitting full RCBO's like
you've done here is there another stage that we could go through there is yes so we can now fear
arc fault detection very similar units to these but they also include protection against arcs in
the circuit okay and we're going to change these rcbos over to see that arc fault detection board
so we've changed it over to our fault detection devices that include the circuit breaker for over
current and short circuit as well as the earth fault protection offered by the rcbo
it doesn't look any different to me from the outside is that true that's true so identical
item been fitted but this now offers art fault protection for series and parallel arcs it does
we will see a subtle difference when we liven it up because there is a neon underneath them
where this test button is for the rcd that will glow but from the customer's point of view
what's the benefit of them fitting our fault protection again just remind us again that
what's the benefit so with the artful devices this is going to sense any arcing throughout the system
whether that be an appliance that's plugged in that's faulty or whether there be a cable that's
come loose in the back of a socket and it's sitting there arc and obviously arc can create
heat fire potential hazards and there's a key word for you this now offers protection against fires
from those arcs that can be generated we're going to cover on we're going to put all those stickers
on and we'll just finish off them so it's a full day's work completed from matt from MJ electrical
services in order that he can change this consumer unit or fuse box whatever you want to call it
so we've now got a nice metallic consumer unit installed but there was other things that he did
he's been round before he left and he's tested every electrical circuit within the installation
and it's completely the appropriate paperwork which will be emailed off to the customer
so let's have a look at the work he's done so as we lift it up we've introduced a
spd on this end surge protection device and for further information about spds and domestic
dwellings check out the other video that me and joe made we've got our main switch here that turns
off the whole of the electrical installation and you notice something slightly different than the
previous overcurrent protection devices fuses that were fitted we've now got this red light
underneath okay so we've installed this time on our fault detection device so this device has over
current short circuit which would expect earth leakage protection but also protection against arc
so that's a level up from the installation that we had previously so when we just had the rcbos in
so we started off with a plastic consume unit with limited protection for earth fault
and we've now got a consumer unit that includes protection from surges protection from arcs as
well as every circuit having earth fault protection as well there are other videos
in this series that will be worth checking out as well as the one that we've just mentioned
on search there's also one called does my house need a rewire they may be worth having a look
at as well for further information please head over to electrum.co.uk and thanks for watching