Cutting the Fuse Seal?

[daddyfreddy]

I'm about to change a CU and have read back through the archives about removing the 100A fuse to isolate the leccy.

From what I can gather the company cannot refuse me without good reason

but anyone know what the situation currently is with all this Part P hysteria? If I call them up will I get told to sod off and prove that someone with blah blah qualifications must do it and provide proof? Anyone had any recent experience?

The alternative of course is just to remove it and let them re-seal it the next time they come to service their equipment - which is the route I'm erring on.

[Lurch]

On 21 Oct 2005 14:11:35 -0700, [e-mail] scrawled:

Right then....

Where did you get that from? They can do what they want, reasoned or not.

No different, you're not meant to do it and part P has nothing to do with meter seals.

Might do, ring them and see what happens.

Yes, I recently cut some seals in order to change a CU.

Go for it then.

[Grunff]

This is exactly what I did - no probs.

[jim_in_sussex]

Me too. Over a year ago and it's still unsealed.

Meter readers nowadays appear to neither care nor have the skill to reseal, nor perhaps even the authority to report missing seals.

just make sure you switch everything off before withdrawing the fuse!!

[Frank Erskine]

That's a good point. Does the seal belong to the REC, or the retailer from whom you buy your electricity?

Obviously it's fitted to REC plant, but the retailer is the one who will be deprived if you bypass the meter...

[Andy Wade]

Making sure everything is off before reinserting the fuse is more to the point...

[Lurch]

On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 01:30:27 +0100, Andy Wade scrawled:

That's no fun........

[Rob Morley]

If you want fun just don't bother to isolate the power when replacing a CU, then it's like one of those "pass the loop over the bent wire without setting off the light/buzzer" games. :-)

[daddyfreddy]

No problem, I'm going to make sure of that and the rest. Plenty to correct, including the mass of junction boxes 2 metres from the CU without earth sleeving and unsupported (all from original build - 1970)

Cheers to the all. I'm not going to bother calling the leccy company because if they refuse then it might be logged and I'll probably end up with more grief.

Lurch, I read that bit about not being able to refuse somewhere here. There seems to be loads of misleading bits of information all over the place. The way I understood things was that these new regulations meant having to inform building control and then get it passed, but you could do the work yourself.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've a feeling they are not the electricity company employees anymore.

[Lurch]

On 22 Oct 2005 03:34:51 -0700, [e-mail] scrawled:

Welcome to usenet.

Correct, but that doesn't include the cutting of the seal as you're not meant to do it so there is no need to notify it, IYSWIM.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Only, think of the light and buzzer as a detonator and semtex. The danger in doing this is not so much being electrocuted, but in getting serious flash burns if you do short out the supply. You could be just a few inches from a megawatt of energy spraying out vapourised metal at you.

[Roger R]

replacing a

Thinking of the incoming power cable, when I removed the old earth connection strap (all power was shut off for rewire) I found the tightening screw had pressed quite a deep dent into the lead covering and distorted the cable from round to elliptical.

When fitting the new strap I was worried about causing a cable short if I overdid the tightening, but had to tighten it to make a good connection. Was causing cable short likely? How bad could it have been?

Anecdote: On occasion I was talking to some electric company fellows replacing street lighting columns, and an internal short appeared to have occurred, for the cable was hot and the ground all steaming, though there was nothing else to see. They 'simply' cut out the hot defective section of cable -working on it live - and joined up the ends using a new coupling joint.

Roger

[Steve Walker]

We recently had a new earth connection made by the REC's engineers. They did this working live on the armoured cable as it entered the house - stripped it back to a few cores sticking up out of the floor, and rebuilt the connection from there. Obviously very skilled and careful chaps, but I was holding my breath nonetheless...

[Rob Morley]

Good job I had a steady hand then :-)

[<me9]

I remember the air turning blue (in more ways than sparks!) when the fuse blew on insertion (by the leccy board). A dead short about 2 metres of 2.5mm away from the CU did it without tripping a (correctly working) 6a MCB. The PFC of that installation was rather high (about 5 metres from the sub station).

[Ed Sirett]

By the book this is wrong on two counts a) Not turning off before reinserting the fuse. b) Not performing polarity, earth continuity and insulation checks before commissioning new work.

We all follow the book all the while of course, yeah right.

[zymurgy]

yep, the Elec board contractor who came round to my old house to fix the 'dimming' lights worked on the whole thing live, as it had been arcing where the cable enters the house.

As soon as I saw the lights doing what they did, recognising the symptoms of arcing and seeing the cable was hot, the board sent someone out within 2 hours as soon as I reported it !

Cheers

Paul.

[David Hansen]

On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 23:09:04 +0100 someone who may be wrote this:-

2.5mm2 cable protected by a 6A MCB. Do tell us more.

[Andrew Gabriel]

A similar fault burned out the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Dunstable. Unfortunately, they refurbished it...