hello i'm JW and here we are at tresham college and what we've got here
nice selection of uh old fuse boxes and consumer units and
i've got a bit more cable and stuff as well and some rather unusual plugs
and what should we start with i don't mind john so before john gets into his full road show so we're
doing this a live road show so you should look around behind the camera you can't see it john's
actually doing this to a live audience so this is something you normally do in a back bedroom
or the garden is that true that's it okay so we're doing it live here at tresham before we start that
it's an absolute privilege to have john join us okay it was almost a four-hour trip up to us yeah
and that makes it a four-hour trip to get home does it not yeah okay so an eight-hour travelling
event to come and see us and the 50 learners that we've got here so on camera john we'd like to
give you a massive thanks and i'm sure everybody here would like to give a massive thanks as well
changing lives on youtube educating the electrical industry as well as making it fun and entertaining
so john's going to do a live version of what we do on your youtube channel
with us for our students here so i'm going to be nice and quiet as
john goes through some of the accessories in front of him
right we'll start with this one metal consumer units not new at all they're
new now because you're supposed to fit all metal ones but uh this one probably
30 40 years old anyone know what make it is shout out
nope is it is it eminem no that was joe robinson by the way got it wrong
there yeah this is a Crabtree is it Crabtree john yeah hey
these Crabtree these are c-50s which are a bit unusual because they don't have the standard trip
mechanism in instead of the uh they normally have a bi-metallic strip these have a silicone filled
plug and a magnet around the outside very common ones now they're not common at all and in theory
you can still get them if you need replacements in reality addictive it's expensive so unfortunately
like a lot of most of this stuff if you've got one of these it's a well due for replacement okay
main problem with these is no rcds and you can't fit them either okay so that's pretty much the
situation with all of these and if you've got one of these same so much house or something if
you guessed it putting a new circuit in whatever you're kind of stuffed because
no rcd and there's not really any way of fitting one other than sticking one on outside in a sort
of separating closure or something but by the time we've done that you might as well just
rip the whole thing out and uh there's gonna be a few more issues i think other than the fact that
we probably haven't got any lcd fitted as well this one is not too bad there's no rcd but uh
unfortunately uh that's just due to the age of the things and you've removed all of these
consumer units that we're looking for uh most of them yeah i think uh this one i think was
donated by somebody but yeah pretty much all these come out of their various houses and
other places that i've worked on over the last 10 years now this thing which is a plastic one anyone
guess what the name of this game yeah yeah well done yeah that's the one these are quite unusual
because they've got these uh plug-in circuit breakers you can actually rip one out there
most of these actually had fuses either the cartridge fuse or the rewireable style
but this one has the uh so with the state of the art for the day then john pretty much yeah because
you can reset them they're fantastic that's a good idea absolutely i think there was one or two
other drawbacks with them yeah there were a few drawbacks anyone uh one of them when it's pressed
in they get welded they can get welded in so they uh don't actually work and then there's another
one if you've got a row of those under the stairs in your house and then you've got a load of coats
hanging down yes because these are literally just touch this red button then it trips out
i have been to houses where that has been the fault right so you go in someone's house oh my
power's not working and you're going to say well actually you just press this and now it's working
that'll be 50 quid please yeah but they uh and front it's really difficult understands covered
it's very difficult to see that it's actually getting itself out from its position there's no
other indicator is that yeah so you can't really see them but uh they're a fairly unusual one
the wireless ones are fairly common in these which we'll look at on the uh ones in a minute
but uh unfortunately these are not compatible with the wireless because the blades are
the other way around so and again you've got one of these no rcds not possible to fit one either
you occasionally see these with rcd in a separate enclosure outside but that doesn't really comply
either issue with braking capacities on them great passes it's not too bad i mean because they're
as long as in a domestic situation because you've got the fuse in the main cut out that
provides the backup protection for that but they're pretty low 3ka in most cases okay
on to the uh i don't know the uh antiques roadshow and we're going to be doing the veneer no doubt
and all the rest of it yeah this one i don't think this has ever been used because it's super
clean and there's no fuse wire in it either oh right okay well it's literally yeah as new
it says war finish which gives you a kind of idea when it was actually made
wall finish mainly because they would have made it in a better case and because it was the war
they didn't have much resources so okay hence it was made down to a cheaper nasty brown paint job
what's uh unusual about this as in we've got two rows of fuses
this top is going to be if your line the bottom is going to be for the neutral
so this is actually a neutral fused thing which is no longer permitted and hasn't been since mid-50s
but uh no means of isolation for the whole consumer either no isolation so you would have a
separate switch inside the circuit protective conductor no no earthquake or anything no
and made of a nice combustible material yeah nice teak or something there so it dries out
a few sparks we've got positive side though we've got a lovely distribution board charlie
nice yeah absolutely that's the future but yeah double pull fusing
what's the main problem with double pulse using anybody we might be struggling there
gone and john okay fusing the line and the neutral
if the fuse blows you've got no way of knowing which it's going to be
if the neutral fuse fails circuit is still alive so it doesn't work but of course you touch it
and then you're basically dead because there's no arse of these or anything on these either
and so that is Crabtree
again same as that one come a long way come a long way do i take one of these two yeah okay
now these anyone guess what name it is
no too shy out there they are too short right this is the ylx one
these are really really common millions and millions are installed all over the uk
and there's still millions of them out there as well so if you go to these houses it's not
unusual to find something like this there's also a white version as well have you got
this one westy is this your one you're not telling me it's one of these area
you had this one that one okay so west is still and he's obviously a practicing electrician
have you got not around to change it now one day hopefully comes freaking himself yeah these things
say very common various size you can get this as a six way and it's the black one which will be a
70s uh effort they did make cream and white ones they'd be late today but they're all basically the
same i like the cream ones because you'd have the skid mark up there where the fuse is blown
so you always had a good idea when you went to the distribution it was a brand new one yeah
what's the main thing you never do with these if the fuse is blown what did you first before you
go pulling fuses out you always isolate it you most certainly do that was joe robinson again
yeah if you don't turn these off if you just pull out the fuse which will attempt to do it
oh and there's the baseline off if these are wired correctly then it's reasonably safe to pull it out
but the problem is that people often put the wires in these wrongly and it just strays over
the top it does so when you put your fingers here you're actually touching the fuse wire
and then you get a nice shot from it and because there's no rcd of course then yeah you know the
result yeah we do uh these things bizarrely are still in the vs7671 regulations yep whether they
should be as another story for another day but uh they are still in there so if you go to someone's
house and you've got one of these fuses blown yeah you can just put wire in and put it back
in but of course you need to find out what the fold is first and the other thing you have to do
with these is is when the power is turned on you do not ever get one of these and shove it in any
idea why yeah if there's a fault there and you're holding this and you shove it in that fusela is
going to vaporize and it's going to spray modern copper at both ends and if you're holding it
it's going to go onto your fingers so you've got a nice burn there as well as the electric shock risk
so these were pretty much the same including the white ones nice wooden frame on this one
they did change over to plastic a bit later but wooden frame there these are quite often mounted
on a bit of chipboard or something on the wall as well so any sparks inside a nice bit of dryer
dusty kindling inside yep absolutely get the fire going yeah that's good sets it off there
fantastic okay that's the smaller one pretty much the same deal this is just your four-way
with three most common types of fuses there yeah we're happy with the color we'll do another time
we're happy with those color fuses and the wiring system likely to be attached to some
of these consumers not necessarily extensively we have early pvcs as well but we've got some
of those examples in you talked about before on on your channel we've got your vulcanized indian
rubber and lead sheath cables yep this stuff here you can see what's gone wrong with this already
rubber with a cotton braid over the top it is perfectly fine when it was put in
when this was made it was supposed to have about a 25-year lifespan
now they haven't actually made this stuff for at least 50 years and you're
still out there so if you find any of this what's the obvious thing to say
yeah it needs replacing there's no question about it because it's
at least 25 years past it's sell by date and as you can see this piece
here looks okay but then it gets moved you get these it just breaks completely apart
these weren't picked and installed to be a poor effort at the moment in time well they they were
the best we could possibly do yeah when this was put in they didn't expect it to last more than 25
years but unfortunately there's some still out there corby you know these these gentlemen for
call me a lot of the properties around here 15 20 years ago i was rewarding that we're
all involved in indian rubber that's what they put in there but probably the last swing of it
going in before pvc changed over of course then we forgot the cpc on the lights and
we're now swinging those out etcetera that's really good anything else yeah this here is
kind of twin with no earth the earth is uh in theory the outside covering this is made of lead
it's extremely heavy someone's smashing it up over there so
this stuff again hasn't been made for even longer than this stuff so you're talking 60 70 plus years
old for this so as with that if you find any as anyone's house this needs to be replaced
pretty much immediately that should have been replaced decades ago anyway and the same problem
with this really because the inner conductors are basically the same as these so dry out crumble
away and of course because you've got your lid covering on the outside this might be earthed
but of course it might not and if it doesn't you end up with all this becoming live and this
one just brushes again still touches it yeah and also yeah electric shock time not very good idea
yeah and this stuff here which is sort of between the two of those yes twin with no earth so it's
rubber both sides on the outside in the inside cores as well and again hasn't been made 50 years
plus so got any of that definitely to go and there's no earth so uh quite often fine people
have sort of just shoved on like new metal light fittings or little light switches and there's this
behind it yeah absolutely unsafe it comes back to the diy problem though because no electrician
would actually install a metallic light fitting with no cpc but of course dad and mum at the diy
shops definitely do don't they and the problem with that is oh it works so it must be all right
that's fine yeah of course absolutely it isn't um we're gonna we'll finish this one off here and
then we'll have another chat about where we've gone to next so we might have john's opinion on
afds because you've done a video on that very recently it's very easy to get them to trip i'll
see you on your video yeah yeah it took 10 minutes yeah doubled the load didn't you and you're trying
to crack a massive arcana so there's obviously some um obviously the teething problems with
them or we've not quite worked out what type of art they're going to protect SPDs are a big
thing now and we can talk about whether you're started fitting those in your current electrical
installations on the next part maybe and we've got the the newer style metallic consumers unit
so we'd like to thank and everybody here would like to thank john and we'd like to thank john so
there's a live version of what john puts out twice a week on his channel we were very lucky because
we asked john ward to come and visit us and john ward accepted on the test thank you very much