in this video we're going to take a look at british general's fortress range of consumers
i've been joined by rick who's been stretching his legs alongside the canal looking at the wildlife
and soaking up the sun however looking at your face it looks like you might have caught a little
bit of that sun as well hey what a nice day then am i right in thinking that the bg consumer unit
here is the one that was previously reviewed yeah this one here and i'll leave a link to it in the
description and all the great features that we pulled out of that video have moved across to
the new 2022 version and we know what happens with cars don't we they have the latest version
and there's a few extra bits that makes it even more special so we're going to take a deep dive
into the new 2022 fortress consumer unit in this video I'm sure the keen eyed amongst you would have
spotted this magnetic lid holder and in the center there you can see that magnet so pop it into place
it sits on top of either a breaker the rccb or the main switch obviously preventing the lid
from closing which means when we say labeling up the stickers underneath the overcurrent protection
devices at the end that we haven't got to hold the lid with one hand as obviously we insert those
stickers and this will be available from september i noticed as you were just sweeping across here
where you're going to put the label in there is a bit of a recess at the front here and there isn't
on the previous version there isn't so this step down aperture has been added to the consumer
unit to add more rigidity to the lid so if i press the lid there you can see next to no flex
however on the original one which i described as a substantial unit in other words a solid unit
you can just see a little bit of flex in that lid and the new ones overcome that the
strengthening continues also by adding this rib to both the bottom and the top of the consumer
unit so when you're fixing it to the surface it won't flex or move and keeps it in position
we also look to have a design change on the lid of the consumer unit also yes if we rotate it around
you can see this raised section here and now above it is this new
indented section and the thinking behind that is obviously it makes it easier to locate the lid
first time onto the base in the correct position by having the tube where previously we just had
the one raised edge on the side of the consumer unit before we take the lid off which needs only
a slotted position for these screws and every screw within the consumer unit you can just
notice down here like a slim line blank and if i show you what it looks like when it's not attached
that's in place in order to keep the ip rating up to ip2xc something that joe will cover in a
q a question if we look at the original board you can just see the problem it overcomes
down by the side of the main switch obviously it doesn't matter which end we are you can just see
that very small gap there that this slimline blank overcomes by filling it in let's remove the cover
and again it's on both designs i love the fact that we've got a captive screw here
because the screw on the floor is a screw i'll see no more just looking at this here it looks
as though we've got pink crimps on the neutral conductors and coming across over to this one
it looks as though they've been ultrasonically welded yeah good spot there and again remember
when we're undoing terminations within consuming units we must do them up using a torx screwdriver
then a whole series on torque but we shouldn't use a torx screwdriver as a screwdriver so i'm
going to take my slotted posi 2. i'm just going to undo this the thinking behind going over to
ultrasonic welded is you get a bigger surface area of material connecting the neutral connection
to the neutral bar so that's why they've moved away from ping crimps as rick pops the neutral
back in i like the feature that carries across both boards being the fact that all the screws
the earth bar neutral bar breakers and main switch are backed off the holes in the bars are generous
for our conductors as well there's a little bit of loctite on there so they don't vibrate and
fall out during transit so i'm glad they've kept that feature going so then guys did this board
come fully populated yeah the fortress range has many configurations and variations so i will leave
a link to it in the description so you can explore it yourself and yes i did choose a fully populated
one had nine breakers the serger estiquette and two rccb's already in the consumer when it arrived
however it might be that you want a different configuration and the fortress range has got you
covered so i could have chose a consumer unit and the appropriate rcbos for the loads in which i had
looked as well i've got you covered with an afd or an art fault detection device and we now know
under the 18th edition amendment 2 of bs7671 that certain circuits in certain locations will require
an afd and the fortress range also has those products within it what type of acid is it that
we've got in here again 18th edition amendment 2 says that we need to choose the appropriate type
of rcd let's take a look at the ones that are within this board this rccb has got type a rcd
protection yeah good spot rick there's a symbol just there and we know under the amendment two of
bs7671 that we're moving away from ac rcds well we can't guarantee it's a purely resistive load
and it's nice to see that the fortress range has already taken that out of the installer's hands
and it's put a type in which really should be the minimum now for an rcd protection and it offers
additional protection because we can clearly see there that it's rated at 30 milliamps as well
next to the rccb we've got surge protection yeah and we know we can't really get away we're not
fitting it anymore in domestic dwellings so there it is located right next to the actual main switch
in the perfect position this type 2 surge arrester so while we're talking about the surge we can see
it comes pre-wired within the consumer unit and is connected to a type b 32 amp circuit breaker
and not to the circuits of the rccb and the reason behind that is we have a configuration that allows
us to have high integrity circuits yeah i suppose if we wanted to we could reconfigure the board
to allow us to pop in this afd yeah we can rick i agree with that so if we look at this we've
got an art fault detection device here so if we had a circuit that required our fault protection
we could rearrange it and install that in that section looking back at the original consuming
that i reviewed on the channel one of the things that i noticed was hey we've got a
lot of positions that we can insert cable glands or exit points for cables and this one here was
designed to be for the tails they've got this size hole on the side and top which i think are in the
correct position this one to me seemed a little bit too far to the left so let's have a look
so when we look in here you'd be bringing your tails in and you'd be coming up the back here
and obviously i've said before that there's huge amount of room behind these consumer units dim
rails however in that section there bringing up your tails would be tricky in order to get
them into the main switch so british general have listened and they've moved it so it could
actually come up from this section where there is a lot of room so if we look at the new board
and the positions of that hole they've kept a hole here if you wanted to do it say for your
tails but they've also added a hole just here that can be taken out in order that your glam can
be positioned and as i drop it down you can see now when we come through here our tails can sit
either under the dim rail or above it and swoop around with plenty of room in order that they can
be installed within our double pole switch and just to confirm we have other options to come
in with those tail glands so if we look on the side we have a position here as well as on the
top and i just like to say for the record it was my feedback from my original video that suggested
i would have liked that hole in this position here so maybe we could call that the gary hole
are you taking any sort of credit for that then i'm gonna take notice from your previous review
we had a lot of space around the back of the mcb's you can see we've also got the same on this one
and here which will allow us i suppose to dress in the cables neatly another thing that helps
you make a better job of dressing in those cables is that bolt there which is on both consume units
is matched on this side here meaning that when we back those off that we've got a quick release
dim rail section so the entire section here can come off making it considerably easier for the
electrical contractor to install those cables nice and neatly the subtle improvements in the
fortress range continue on even with the blanks this is a blank from the previous board i reviewed
and we're all used to in the electrical industry clipping one of those into position like so
but now we're aware that we've got this little gap here as well however let's take this one
back out and i'll show you the new blanks there's considerably more material in them so they're a
lot thicker than they were previously and they require you to put them in with a side rotation
so we have to rotate it into position it also doesn't slide so it doesn't move down i'll put my
smaller insert in to get rid of that small gap on the end i'll slide my blank down into position and
now when we put it on top of the consumer unit in there we can see we've lost that little edge
there we've got a considerably firmer blank but in order to get this out i couldn't push
it through the board at any point however hard i pressed i wouldn't be able to get it through
how do i remove the blank i need to use a key or tool to open the enclosure in this case a tool so
i back off the screws i would need to lift off my lid i would need to slide it away rotate it to the
side in order to remove it so there you go what a great improvement a little subtle one in order
that our blanks are held firmly into position and require a key or tall in order to remove them
so then guys the bg fortress consumer unit is packed full of new features i want my fit in
one of them well look would have it the one we ordered and we reviewed today needs fitting at
loinside studios and we need a volunteer in order to do it however as always we want your feedback
are you currently fitting split load consumer units are you currently fitting boards full of
rcbos or as rick would have you fitting them full of afdds we'd like that feedback below
which was the outstanding feature that you thought that we showed today on the new fortress range
leave that comment below and we'll try and get back to as many as we can let's get to it