so we're back at our smart home takeover we've got ross from RS Electrix behind us
busily working away what is he doing Gordon? we're changing the consumer unit today Gary
now we're going to go into the reasons why we're changing the consumer unit because all we
set out to do was install an EV charger and they're supposed to be really easy yeah we
are so we're going to give you four reasons why the board behind us is being changed as
well as looking at the equipment we're going to install as well so we're in for a schneider easy
9 consumer unit mainly because of its good looks this has gone in the client's hallway
we could have obviously fitted another additional consumer unit just for the ev charge point but
that would have been a little bit unsightly but we're using this upgrade opportunity to
improve some of the challenges we found in the installation and let's remember the original
consume unit didn't have any spare wares either yeah it was also made of plastic and had type AC
rccb's within it and now we've got a type rcbos meaning we've got better protection
for modern installations as well as selectivity yeah let's remember that previous MK sentry consumer unit is no
longer in production as well so that would again be the challenge even changing those
we also went for surge protection so again an upgrade a great opportunity to add some additional
features to the installation protect all of the electronics that we've added including the car
itself so the board will need to be isolated and made safe before all the circuits can be removed
so we're knocking off the circuit breakers and the RCD then the main switch and then we're
going to go outside and isolate the tails from the 100 amp switch outside and lock it off yeah
so lucky that fitted in the existing tails a lot of installations don't have them you may have to
have that fitted in advance or get the dnr out to disconnect the supply during this process
we've got a lot of circuits in this consumer the unit so it's important that we identify them
all the first circuit going to be the new circuit which is our ev charging point it's a heavy loaded
circuit and we'll be nearest the main switch oh there's the last time we'll hopefully see
those wood screws that have been used to hold the front of the consumer on i think from when it was
originally installed judging by the quality of the rest of the installation that we found here and
as we look inside the consumer you can see first of all there's a lot of circuits but it's not the
neatest i expect ross to return this in a much better state than what we've currently got it in
so the first job with the easy nine board is to configure it for surge protection so we need to
make a few changes the main one being the neutral connection to the bus bar so that needs re-routing
that did uh flood works just a little bit at first especially when you look at the live
bus bar as well because that's the route itself underneath the neutral but yeah we figured it out
relatively easy process once you've read the instructions it's always a key thing and here
to read those instructions because it was very easy to do once you read the instructions so
we're now in the process of actually disconnecting everything within the board but before we can go
about that obviously, we've confirmed the layout so you'll see a lot of marking up processes that
ross does now yeah the last thing you want to do is reconnect the board or start reconnecting the
board and not know which cable goes where unless it's off is this the bit where the customer gets
a bit nervous gary i would always suggest at this time it's when the wi-fi has been off for a small
period of time and that the angst has started and it's always nice now perhaps to hand over the
invoice because i would imagine they'll be keen to see the electricity return to the installation
yeah so there's one thing we'll have to do here is obviously once ross is labeled up is
probably going to need to gain some additional length on all those conductors aren't we because
we're gonna have to re-route them for this this new board yeah and nobody likes to put a lot of
other connections within the consumer unit so in other words a joint so if you can move it and ross
will i think you'll move it up a little bit it just adds the length making sure that obviously
the new connections are solid cables into breakers neutral bars and CPC connections into earth bars
yeah so look at here this is a dot and dab wall so ross is just removing some of the the plasterboard
for the new position, he's marked the wall with a new position he's going to bring the cables in
so this means also that we're probably going to have to replace the metering towels at some point
as well so out comes the fabric of the building and now we're just going to move them up and see
how much length now we've gained in order that we can fit the easy 9. yeah you're right much better
approach than you have to join those uh joining those cables i don't know where you're doing this
the installation you'd be ripping that floor up again upstairs yeah nobody wants to do that
um made a nice job at this he taped up the ends this was new to me and then stripped back to the
taped area put his cpc sleeving on or earth's leaving and then re-taped them again so they
couldn't come off i thought that was a real clever little trick so you just watch him here
he slides on the sleeve in and then he'll re-tape the top of these so it doesn't pull off all right
that's a good a good tip yeah again he's got a uniform length as well with that uh yeah just
his marking process and again you can see how he's marked the circuit numbers on the outer sheath of
the twin and earth cables as well yeah and it's all about the prep the straighter they are now and
the longer they are now the easier it is when we start dressing it into the new board always find
once the new board is on the wall you can take a deep breath in because it's
the enjoyable part of reconnecting yeah it's all the prep work first
so new towels have gotten in and we're now going to introduce the Schenider Easy9 board
and again you watch he's still trying to get them in the right order for the layout of the circuit
breakers within the distribution or consumer unit yeah it is quite cozy in there once you add
all those rcbrs in there and you'll also notice our new cable coming in on the right hand side
for the ev charger with a metal capping that's in place for that it's also got to redress the
alarm cable that was used to feed the uh which now is a smart doorbell and at some point i'm
sure he'll oversleeve that as well yeah another problem we picked up on our initial inspection of
this uh of this project i always like to think when you take off the consumer unit cover and
look at it you make a lot of assumptions about the wiring within the installation itself and
ross took a lot of time to make sure that each of his conductors was dressed neatly into the board
yeah making a fantastic job there he is yeah so all the cpc's going in and then he'll
systematically work his way to the next conductor but look at that's a lot of effort going into
that yes i start introducing the rcbrs yeah so our cbo's come in now we start connecting those up and
dressing them around again he spent a lot of time making sure that everything looked neat you see
him dressing around the neutral connections which come from the rcbo into the uh neutral bar yeah so
i like the way he did that he actually did them in order so a lot of people just sometimes just stack
the board fully loaded with all the breakers and then attempt to do this but there's another good
top tip from ross there yeah okay so here we go and he's again he's trying to make sure that he
can hide those neutral fly leads once they're all connected ferruled ends as well when he trimmed
them back which was nice to see yeah after yeah because they're a fine stranded conductor so you
do need to do something with the ends if you're going to shorten them and once it's got more
connected i'll just pull the camera back in real time you'll be able to see how beautiful he made
those neutrals from the rcbos with the feraldens in the actual neutral terminations itself
so look at that that's pretty neat do you agree yeah so now i've just got to deal with those
functional earth connectors there's not many rcbs still have them but these ones do in this
easy nine board, so again he's put one into each uh individual way so it goes through
the earth terminal corresponding with the rcbr and he's also feraled the ends so now it's just
a case of getting the tails in and those are those flexi tails so they were a lot easier to
pull into 19 strands see now we're just going to connect new towels into the 100 amp switch
so we're very close now to seeing what the finished product does look like
it's all these little things that take the time and you think you're there and then it's
obviously the towels etc there we go so prior to testing so we still got to test the installation
that's the finish board from rs electric well we did say about this didn't we
yes we're just adding some additional insulation to that alarm cable that feeds the uh out to the
belt chime so again they're just making that additional insulation we've got two voltage
bands within the consumer unit and putting the bus bar in just making sure everything's
correct before we go on and obviously look at that testing process and obviously what's going to come
next is obviously the torque settings of the actual devices and we're going to confirm those
yes again just uh get those the torque thing so they are all marked on the uh
on the shroud that goes over the bus part of the bottom which is good we like to see that so
easy to find for anybody in the future so just going wrong and checking those
uh all the torque settings and as we pan back now at the the finish easy 9 consumer unit
you can see it looks considerably better than the one that we had to start with
it's also alleviated some of those problems we've added an additional circuit got a spare weight
it's metallic yeah and we've got that surge protection now as always once you're finished
you're not finished so people think now it's just turn it on and walk away there's some extensive
tests that ross is going to have to carry out and i see is using the matrel 3152 in order to do so
just zeroing up his leads and he goes through the full testing process we'll just show a
sample of what he has to do but this was a few hours after the install as well people think
that's it the board is on the on the wall we're finished and that's not the case yeah and again
obviously we're not a how-to channel so this is not how to change your own consumer unit and this
is probably one of the reasons you wouldn't want to change your own consumer because you probably
don't have the right test gear to confirm that it's been done properly in the installation is as
you would need it to be and he took ownership of all of these circuits now so we're testing a ring
final circuit at the minute he's having to prove that all the rings within installation are a ring
i think there was only one and they had a couple of radials for things like the kitchen and the
downstairs area but he's got to prove that every one of those circuits is correct before he leaves
him yeah and he's testing this from the midpoint in the ring you don't have to do it at the
other consuming of the area no it was nice to see it was a better way didn't want to disturb all
those lovely cables he's put in so he's doing it from one of the socket outlets with the links etc
so as he goes through and what's nice about this you can actually confirm which of the tests you're
carrying out so if this being an r2 test so it's a little r2 test obviously we knew r1 plus r2 our
rn and r1 as well so as you look here we go now for our one plus r2 so this is the actual reading
that we should confirm by a calculation to prove it's on a ring so he's got his links in place
now opposite line and opposite cpc connected and he got 0.33 so we take our little r1 little our
two value and mathematically we've got exactly the same reading proven it was a ring final circuit
but it doesn't stop there does it gordon oh well no i gotta work obviously that's where we brought
our ev charger cable down and hopefully the client doesn't want to live with that uh yeah that urban
look that's popular now no they want the wall putting back together
i don't think many people are thinking when standing on a forecourt about an eevee car
their mind drifts back to their own consuming unit thinking i may need to alter it yeah you're right
gary and ross has done a fantastic job for us he in changing this unit we picked this one because
of its good looks uh you know we could have some other options here we could add another
small consume unit but we use the opportunity of the upgrade to correct some of the other issues
we found in the installation check out our first video when we first walked into this house of some
of the things that concerned us and the previous consumer unit was there on that first tour the
dumb home tour i didn't notice that wall had been chased at that stage so what's going on there
uh well no obviously we couldn't yeah we can't perform miracles to install an ev charge point
and the charge point in this case is all the way at the back of the house so check out the video we
made that explains the problem before we started the installation but we've also made another
video that shows you the journey from the meter cabinet outside through the consumer unit and
follows the cable run and some of the choices we made there to get that ev charge point installed
as always we're interested in your comments are you an electoral contractor that recommends maybe
a separate consumer unit leave your thoughts below i'll use the type of electrician that would like
to offer an upgrade to the consumer and maybe he's finding some resistance to that because of the
increased cost when originally all they wanted was a fancy outside socket in order to charge their ev
are you a customer have you been recommended to have a consuming upgrade and at the time
thought well why am i doing that and maybe it's a little bit clearer now after watching this video
if you leave all those thoughts below and comments we'll try and get back to as many as we can