My house had a 60A fuse on the incoming cutout. I rang Western Power to enquire about an upgrade and within 90 minutes it was done. I now have 80 amp fuse and was told it could go up to 100 amp if the cutout was changed. Incredible service. The question though. What current fuse is normal these days?
For a new build 100A. To get service like that your 60A fuse must have blown.
80 or 100A in my very limited experience.
I got similar service on commercial premises many years ago, and that was an upgrade from 60A to 100A - nothing had blown. We were building a new computer room. The CU was already 100A and the fuse carrier didn't need changing. I thought they might change the meter as that was only rated at 40A, but they didn't care about that. I was surprised there was no charge - I suppose they were looking forward to the increased revenue.
Maybe where you are but I'd expect ENW to move fairly quickly. They have when I've reported over volts... Mind you I've heard SFA since they took away the volt recorder at least two weeks ago. That would have over night averages of around 255 V. My UPS was logging peaks over 260 V...
My house fuse has a printed label saying 80A but it's been altered by hand to read 60A. I've no idea why, or how long it's been like that. I can't imagine any circumstances in which 60A would be inadequate, but YM obviously Vs.
When my meter was changed about 3 years ago the chap wanted to put in a new
80A fuse in place of the 100A; I persuaded him to fit a new 100A instaead. Seems that there might be a desire to /reduce/ load - I wonder why.
Western Power (ex SWEB) seem to be a good bunch like that. I had them out to move a meter from inside to outside. Went to the depot to collect the box and they waved me in the general direction of a stack of them with a smile. The engineers who came out to do the job were both thorough and personable and, IIRC, they offered me a 100A fuse (and on
16mm tails when I thought it needed 25mm.)
Unlikley I'd have thought.
how many people consider the rating of their main fuse when using their electrical devices, and when was the last time you heard of someone blowing their main fuse?
Cor flippin 'eck, we want to shift the meters here but getting blood out of stone with hens teeth is easier than getting any sense out of Electricty North West.
AFAICT you have to submit plans, with a non-returnable fee of about £100, they look at the plans and say yay or nay with no feeback. They won't even consider sending out some one with authority to make decisions to look at the existing meters/supply and negociate a suitable solution. Then of course technically ENW responsibly stops at the cutout, meters are the suppliers responsibilty, can't get any sense about wether they will do the lot, if they will cordinate with the suppliers or if I have to...
I have been, in fact last night I 'installed' a new energy meter
as the previous one from npower died. My fuse says 60 amps, ~ 14.4KW
my water heater cyclinder 3KW
2 storage raidaitors about 2.4KW each. 1 ex storage raidaitor (not removed was 3.4KW)----------------------- An electric cooker 2-3KW depending on what's used.
1 bathroom heater ~2kw 2 convector heaters about 2KW each.So when my CH was first switched on the total would be
3+4.8+3.4 =11.2KWso in theory without any lights on and switching on my kettle I get to almost 60A or 14.2KW. With a TV and 2 computers it doesn't leave me much headway if any.
I exceeded 11.5KW last night at about 12:30am, as I was testing the alarm function of the energy unit.
Think I'll set my alarm for 13KW
Personally never, but I've not personally known anyone to die from an electric shock. I'm not sure exactly when such a fuse will blow, or rather at what precise current as that varies with time and temperature. Might make an intresting practical lab.
I blew one once. When I was 9. Winding about 20 turns of thick copper wire around a mechano axle and connecting it to the mains is bad, its worse when the householder has replaced the fuse in the cu with a bolt. For some reason it was my fault the main fuse blew and I was banned from going there.
In message , whisky-dave writes
Well, I knew posting that here would get people out of the woodwork :-)
In reality it's unlikely that all those things will be on at the same time I'd have thought. eg storage heaters are normally timed to come overnight. and things that are on won't necessarily be drawing current, if they are thermostat controlled. Things like kettle probably wouldn't make a difference anyway as they are on for such a short amount of time.
But in a sense that shows how hard it is to draw anywhere near the max current, especially for any length of time. You need to be using multiple high load devices to do that.
I imagine they will continue to draw a bit more than the rated current for sometime
yes I know reality. Previously my flatmate worked nights in a night club so typically got home about 5am, as she put the bath (around 3KW) on and the oven on(around 3KW) puting the fan heater 1.5KW on (mounted in the bathroom high up) and you can never be sure when the storage radiators fire up or the hot water cyclinder.
Yes they do but for how long can I draw 60 amps, and if I were and put the kettle on (3kw) would that be enough to blow it. This is the reason I'll considering the alarm function.
It is unlikely I'll blow it even less likely if I set an alarm which is why I plan on using it, but I can't help thinking what would happen if I had a shower installed too.
Don't really want to experiment and blow the fuse. All I have to hand is a tin copper wire fuse guide. the largest states that 17 swg is 60 amp fuse wire which is only rated at
22amps current carrying at 35C.
I prefer not to waste my imagination on such things, I have far better use for imagination than thinking of fuses ;-)
But I would like to find out. earlier this week I ordered 50 20mm 1amp fuses. pleanty to experiment on.
I've known of one go.
A neighbour who's fusebox overheated due to a loose connection which melted the plastic enough to eventually get a Live/Earth or Live/Neutral short.
:-)
Cor flippin 'eck, we want to shift the meters here but getting blood out of stone with hens teeth is easier than getting any sense out of Electricty North West.
Would have been easy near me, I know people who move meters for a living and like a little extra cash in their pocket.
Do they also install the magic meters that don't go round as fast as the official ones ;-)
Owain
BS-1361 60A fuse will supply 100A for about an hour ...
I think they charged something like £70 all in too (box + moving, about
10 years ago) and it wasn't like I turned up in rigger boots sucking air through my teeth.Only advantage to living in this benighted county.
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