Modern (and ancient) circuit breakers are on the live wire. So when they trip (or are turned off) they break the circuit but leave neutral and earth connected. I can't be the only one to have knocked the whole house off when working on a circuit with the breaker out by touching live and neutral. Which is a pain if you need light to see where you are working, and also mfor anyone else who wants to do something in the house whilst you are working.
Split consumer units allow you to have only half the house turned off, but still impose limitations.
So why not pass all circuits through a double pole isolating switch straight after they leave the consumer unit? For spurs such as lighting, cooker, immersion, electric shower etc. this would be straightforward. For a ring, you would either need a 5 pole (2 live, 2 neutral, earth) switch - (do they even make these?) - or a short uprated spur before the switch with the ring commencing after the switch.
Anything in the regs to prevent this? Is it worth considering to provide better circuit isolation for the rare cases of maintenance, or just a waste of money and space?
Cheers
Dave R