House I grew up in had a not dissimilar MEM switch/fuse for each circuit
- though ours were metal. Reckon those might date from the 60's if not earlier.
Can't see how old the cutout is - but I'd rate it as a "be careful" as it does not appear to be new!
BTW - are those rubber cables (black ones) going into the top middle unit?
They may be - I'm not familiar enough to know for sure, but I've put them in "treat very carefully, and replace as soon as possible" camp. There's similar all over the old half of the house.
I had a bakelite light switch break on me this w/e (in the on position, with lovely crackling sounds when I moved the switch). Says it all really.
Almost - it's an old farmhouse. In fact, only half of the house is that bad.
The extension (essentially a "new" house tacked on the side) is in fairly reasonably nick, with the wiring done 10 years ago. That's what the big Proteus CU is feeding.
The barns are worse, and fed from this mess.
Don't recognise the MEM acronym. The switch on the far left (mostly out of shot) is metal. I'm not entirely sure what it feeds, which is why it's off.
I must take some photos of mine! Some dates back to the 1930s original installation. Don't know how old the 500mA RCD is though.
I wish:-) You do know that no-one reads a certificate. You could put 666 as an NICEIC no and no-one would know any difference.
Now Eaton-MEM - a manufacturer of switchgear (upto far bigger stuff than that - like 600A distribution boards. More inductrial which is why you don't see much new MEM stuff in a domestic installation.
Cheers
Tim
Midland Electric Manufacturing
They certainly are. The flat black-sheathed ones are TRS (tough rubber sheath) twin, which used to be available with or without earth.
More worrying are all the small-size cotton/rubber unsheathed singles going into the Henley block, protected only by the DNO's main fuse. Any fault or overload on those could easily lead to a fire.
Looks as if the incoming supply may be overhead. What is the means of earthing? Most of the installation appears to have no RCD or ELCB protection, so if the earthing is TT it is likely to be completely ineffective.
It's not just an isolator you need but a complete re-wire, by the look of it, as a matter of some urgency.
When mine was swapped a couple of years ago a socket tester (the one with neons) was plugged in to the nearest socket before and after the swap, just to confirm polarity.
I wish now I'd asked him to fit an isolator I had available.
He didn't comment on the broken seal on the incoming fuse, from when prior to
2002 (perhaps!) I'd changed the CU, but he re-sealed it.
Looks like there is some of the unsheathed twisted earth wire floating about near those CUs as well - quite often romping around the building and making an appearance at most of the sockets. (whether it actually has any continuity between them, and real earth is another matter!)
Can you do a photo a bit to the right so we can see where that main earthing terminal connection goes off to?
yup!
In article , ARWadsworth writes
In article , Tim Watts
incoming fuse, meter and isolator?
Come to that, it would have looked a lot neater if the tails had run from the meter to the bottom of the isolator, and the feed to the CU taken out of the top. Surely it wouldn't matter (electrically speaking) which way round the cables were fitted to the switch?
The incoming cable also looks a bit weedy compared to the tails connected to it. Is this 100A service?
In article , Piers Finlayson writes
replaced by the supply company, and you may as well fit a new backboard at the same time. Also looks like it could be a 40A supply which may need upgrading.
The wiring of the ?shower (the 10mm^2 T&E cable on the left that runs to the RCD, then up and along the top) into the Henley block is, uh, creative. Where's the earth? Looks like it's been cut off.
You've also got old rubber-sleeved wiring in various places. It all needs ripping out and redoing from scratch.
In article , A.Lee writes
No, it's quite usual in domestic properties of a certain age. I've seen worse.
Not electrically, but IIRC that type of isolator can/does have an anti-tamper seal that allows you to access the output terminals but not the input terminals, so if it was sealed, it would have to be fitted upside-down, or it would be pointless as changes to the customer side couldn't be done without breaking seals anyway.
On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 04:53:28 +0000 someone who may be Mike Tomlinson wrote this:-
I imagine the device has a set of terminals marked in and another set marked out. The in ones may well be shrouded, so that the output ones can be worked on while the input is energised. Wiring it up "backwards" makes things more difficult for those who come afterwards.
It is an overhead supply that terminates on a transformer on a pole on my land. The earth feeds all the way back to this transformer.
There's a more complete discussion here:
Indeed, hence me originally stating I'm planning a big rewire! The saving grace is that this part of the house is effectively unoccupied, with it only currently being used for my office.
The initial plan is to strip of all that you see and replace with a new
17th ed CU, with two RCDs, and feed everything off that. It's possible I'll leave the fuse box with the rubber sheathed cable in place for now, to save disturbing that cable.This is all temporary. Long term I'm planning a new CU in a different location (and, as indicated in the linked thread, with a small CU and SWA fed from the location you've seen to the new location).
It just depends on which way the front cover is fitted. There are no in/outs on the switch. The large part of the cover can be sealed allowing the small bit to be removed by the customer.
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