today we're going to look at some solutions for where you have meter tails that are more than
three meters long and to do that we're going to use these isolators from Lewden Palazzoli
gary's not here so i need to do a witty comment over the intro
well was joe's comment witty enough drop a comment below um well gary's away he's also left his pouch
yes that's a bit of a mistake unfortunately because if you zoom in very closely we love this
pouch from Wiha but if you zoom in very closely there you'll see we're missing the slotted pozi
number two which is a pretty useful uh bit there so he's not going to be happy when he returns
and we'll try and find that before he gets back yeah but you're here because we obviously made
a video recently looking at the issues of when meter tails are more than three meters long and
what do you have to do in those scenarios yeah absolutely that was a bit of a contentious issue
are we allowed uh meter tails or consumer unit tails to be more than three meters
the answer is no and we explained why the answer is no and we also explain that actually we need
to not get hung up on that three meters figure either because some dnos state that really you're
not allowed more than two meters yeah you're right and we found that when we're looking at the issue
of uh putting switch fuse isolate as well mainly related to ev installations within the meter box
we're not going to debate that here today there is a separate video where that is still raging on
interesting one of those dnos specifically in their instructions although they weren't
open to having ev equipment in there did suggest that you could put an isolator
uh in the meter box so yeah just check out that video i think we're probably going to have to do
a follow up on that because there's been a lot of comments on it um so i guess joe the first thing
to look at is probably that isolator that possibly could go in the meter box because we're not moving
our colors to any master at the minute are we no we'll just have a little closer look at that one
so this is this one here so this is what's this product this is the MSF from Lewden and it's a main
switch and it's also got inside here a fuse as well so i've switched it off it's simulated anyway
and there you can see that fuse holder slides out nice and easily and the fuse that comes in there
is an atm per standard okay so yeah it's rated at 80 amps just switch it on there you go so here we
go yeah it's a good positive switch action yeah we like that let's have a look at under the cover
yeah so i'll undo these screws and take the front off here because there's a couple of things just
to take note of as we dive into this obviously you're ignoring the instructions there so switch
off before removing cover yeah i think it's fair to say if you know me at all you'll know that i'm
a stickler for the rules so i'm being properly rebellious here in trying to oh look at that
it actually won't come off which is really clever so this bit of moulding around the main
switch there means you have to put it in the off position in order to remove that lid there okay
that's clever uh so we've got our incoming terminals there so notice they're shrouded
absolutely so here we've got a sort of a tails to tails solution and the incoming tails here
are likely to be permanently live all the time so they're just in place there to make sure that you
can't accidentally touch those terminals on the occasions when you do need to remove the lid okay
quite generous terms so you've got 25 millimeters coming in and out but i notice the cpc is flowing
through there as well yeah i'm assuming that's not switched absolutely not no we know there's
very strict rules about switching protective conductors so this is a double pole switch
and the live conductor there the line conductor i should say sorry
passes through the fuse holder okay so that's fine uh people using yeah meter tails in and out
uh you've got another another piece of kit there yeah absolutely so you may be in a situation where
you you're not really keen on running tails maybe if you're going a little bit more of a distance
and perhaps in that situation we might run a bit of i'm going to get this wrong now twin and
cpc twitter there for most people i don't know twinning skin for the cool kids i'm told anyway
you might want to run a piece of that cable from here to the position of the consumer unit and of
course what you can't do is have the sheath ending outside the unit and then the conductor has just
been split apart into the terminal so ludum provides you with this which they refer to as
a cable duct which is super helpful so the idea here is that in the back of here you can see there
that there's a little bit that you can cut away just get a bit of light in there you can see that
and on the back as well there's a knockout there that you can use to bring that cable in and then
split it into the terminals so that's a good solution i think they also say you can buy an
additional one as well it comes with one in the box uh which is yeah good for those solutions but
then obviously i'm thinking if you're lengthening those tails uh what other precautions do we
possibly need to think about yeah well obviously if you're putting in tails that are more than two
or three meters long they're probably going to be rooted through a property which means you may end
up having to bury them in a wall so then if you're less than 50 mil deep you've got a problem no rcd
protection and if the solutions are to put it in some kind of earth metallic containment like
steel trunking or steel conduit again a bit of a bit of a pain that or as i believe we've
we've read an article that suggests from one of our uh sort of organizations within the industry
uh that you put a bit of armor plating in the wall underneath the plasterboard yeah a substantial bit
of metal i think they described it as yeah i'll leave a link to that article below or possibly
drop your comments in how you deal with that situation when it comes to meet your tales
or using possibly twin and earth for that but obviously a lot of particularly flat things like
that where you're going to have quite a distance between the metering position and the consumer
unit what uh what's the what's the solution that a lot of people are using well of course we see
in a lot of places the answer is to use a bit of armored cable isn't it yeah and so that can
potentially be buried in the wall and that would be acceptable if that armoring is
correctly earthed or it could be run on the surface in areas where there's likely to be
the chance of mechanical damage but what we've then got is this other solution
from Lewden which is this consumer unit containing a switch fuse inside there okay so we've got there
let's just have a look okay so yeah that looks like the regular switch we're used to seeing in
Lewden consumer units yeah absolutely and you can see there that it also feeds into the bottom of
this fuse holder here now you'll notice at the minute that's empty but what's fantastic and i
didn't realize this until we started making this video i think this is a great thing that ludin do
they give you the three most common size fuses that you're likely to be putting into that switch
fuse there you've got your 63 amp your 80 amp and your 100 amp and you select which one you want to
pop in yeah well come on pop one in Joe we'll go with the 80 so it matches yeah that's nice
that keeps me happy and look at that okay now i quite like about this it's a sort of clam
shell design isn't it so when you remove the cover you haven't got sides to the unit yeah
which again is actually really helpful in terms of just getting access inside here to the terminals
and to bend your cables in you know it's quite a 25 mil cable is a beast that requires a little
bit of wrestling isn't it and it's quite good as well because it means if you're using as we are an
earthing nut here you can actually get into the terminals from the sides as well which opens up
a few more options okay we've got a bonding lead there as well does that go under the front cover
yep and again that's quite an important thing in the instructions it specifically states that must
be in place so obviously on the underside of the lid here you can see that there is a little stud
just there that that connects onto and again yeah in the instructions it tells us very clearly
that must be in place so you can't rely on the connection between the screws that go into
the nuts there in the lid okay so i'm looking this looks like quite a compact unit you've brought the
the tails in at the bottom and the outgoing cable at the top what if i wanted to change
that round i'm gonna you know i think i'd probably struggle to get the cables down and
bent around into the terminals can you change the direction yeah absolutely so again if you
want to bring the tails in the top here and take your submarine cable out at the bottom this cable
here it actually shows again in the instructions that you can change that into the bottom terminal
which means that then you can bring your incoming cable into the top which that's just such a
neat little solution isn't it really clever yeah and that's a yeah in case you're wandering there
that is quite a flexible cable it's a class five so yeah that's going to be pretty easy to position
that so that's it that's a that's a neat solution yeah obviously we see if we look around on
instagram and things like that a lot of people manage to get this all the way into the meter
box so let us know your solution if you're managing to squeeze this into the meter box
or you've adopted another solution we do see various ones out there would be interesting to
get your comments on that but i think yeah this is the solution that people are using yeah
absolutely and it's it's fantastic it's got it's maybe the electrician in mind you know a couple of
other just what might seem like small features but are actually super helpful so you've got
in the earthing terminal there obviously if you're using one of the cores of the armor in
there as sorry one of the cause of the armored as your earthing conductor that's going to be
quite a substantial size cable and the terminals in there are absolutely massive they are more
than capable of swallowing up one of those 25 mil squared conductors there which is brilliant
and and we spotted this label which was a bit of a bit of a first for us here gordon as well
yes so yeah the all-important torque settings yeah attention you must tighten things to the correct
tightness especially uh when you're dealing with uh pretty high current uh switch here
like this and it's yeah yeah that's a check out our videos we've made on using torx screwdrivers
with consumer units yeah absolutely right contentious issue but as ever we're always keen
um to understand your thoughts about these solutions what are you doing when you've got
tails more than two or three meters long depending on which dnr you're dealing with um where do you
position the switch fuse and yeah are you using the metal version or the plastic version so please
put your comments below and we'll look forward to joe getting back to as many as he can