I happen to glance at my mum?s electricity meter today (she lives in a tenement flat). The incoming wires look decidedly ?skinny?. Fortunately she?s not a heavy electricity user but I?m curious as to what current this kind of cable is rated to.
should be good for a couple of hundred amps, same as a car starter motor draws.
House is probably fused at 60A.
Looks like a fairly standard supply arrangement, should be capable of at least 60A.
If it's 16mm or Imperial equivalent, Single phase clipped direct or better (C/1) = 87A
It's "suppliers works" anyway, so BS 7671 doesn't apply. I think my flat was on about 6mm.
Unless mum has 8 3-bar electric fires running full tilt, it's not going to overheat.
And assuming mum being in a tenement flat is of the Scottish persuasion, she'll not be running 3-bar electric fires when one would do, turning the second one on for visitors.
Owain
The outgoing wires from the meter to the fusebox look more worryingly slim. Can you show us the consumer unit, or tell us how many and what rating MCBs or fuses it has? Or when you said incoming did you mean from the meter to the house? Normally incoming would mean the grey covered wires from the supply to the meter.
Surely the outgoing (on the right) are thicker than the incoming?
Oh yes, you could be right. I interpreted the grey wires as daisy-chained supply wires going to other flats, but perhaps this flat has three large meter tails from a connection block to three CUs - that's even odder to my mind.
If you look closely the black tails coming out of the meter are quite slim!
The "henley" block (actually it's an MK) does look odd, one red/black in and three reds out plus another of unknown colour tucked behind the three?
I suppose the red wires could be to an Economy 7 switch, but aren't these normally two pole? Is it possible that the MK block is arranged as joined pairs front to back rather than a multiway block?
The black ones?
They are more likely to be the 'outgoing'.
Surely she'd turn the one off, with visitors radiating extra heat!
ITYM "going into"
Ours is like that. It's because there was originally one consumer unit, and I wanted more ways on it. Impossible in the space, so there are two more above the first, with a Henley block below. All the tails are
25mmsq, apart from the ones from the meter to the Henley block!
There isn?t a problem but I find the disparity between the meter inputs and outputs rather amusing. I guess the tails between the meter and the fuse box are determined by regulations rather than need.
Tim
Yep...
Um no. That?s the input.
Tim
That's what I thought originally but then got to wondering why you'd have several supply connected in that block.
What i meant was the black tails are quite slim. Whether they are 'coming out' or 'going in' to the meter is hard to ascertain from the photo.
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