I have a problem, in that house has been rewired ?? sometime ago, but it still has rewirable fuses. The lighting circuits have been rewired, but with no earth run.
I need an electric shower, electric extract fan and electric light reposition.
Sparky says that he has to put in a new consumer unit, and thus rewire the house.
If the wiring is OK, it looks like the existing cable tails to the consumer box (they are all seperate single fused boxes) are not long enough to go to a new box.
Whats the best way forward, and the most cost effective.
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has rewirable fuses. The lighting circuits have been rewired, but with no earth run.
box (they are all seperate single fused boxes) are not long enough to go to a new box.
Does sparky want to rewire the whole house?
Or just put in a new consumer unit with an RCD for the shower, fan and light, in line with Part P and wet electrickery safety. And maybe a new earth spike to go with it.
Why not get him to put in a little consumer unit with a few spare sockets for future expansion of the wiring?
has rewirable fuses. The lighting circuits have been rewired, but with no earth run.
He will have to check the main bonding is up to scratch, and in your case probably any supplementary bonding in the bathroom, though the latter is normally fairly easy to remedy and the former varied depending on where things are. However, he is not obliged to bring your whole house upto the 17th in order to add a circuit.
Therefore adding a shower circuit does not imply a CU change. The shower will need 30mA/40mS RCD protection. So, provided your rewirable fuse board is in a satisfactory condition:
a) Add a new fuse if the board will take it (space and board's max current loading). Incorporate RCD in a box and position where convenient.
or
b) Add a new CU case, split the meter tails (Henley Block) to feed old board and new CU. New CU has RCD protection. The CU itself needn't be very expensive even for a good make and you don't need to have more than one MCB at this stage.
However, the light and the fan are a different problem... At worst, the only requirement would be to rewire that one circuit and include RCD protection.
There is no requirement to upgrade any of the other circuits.
A third option would be that new CU, and add a second MCB for lighting and rewire only the bathroom lights, leaving the rest alone. That should not be any more disruptive as the cables are going the same way as the shower circuit.
It would be a good idea to assess the state of the rest of the wiring at that age, but if it is in good condition, it's time to get some more quotes from other people. A full rewire is not an automatic presumption here.
box (they are all seperate single fused boxes) are not long enough to go to a new box.
Henley block - a terminal block for meter tails solves this problem. In fact I would have thought you would have one or two pairs of Henley blocks with your setup anyway. Do any of those have spare ways?
MEM switch fuses by any chance? We had the same when I grew up. Take 2 out and you have virtually enough space for a new CU whilst leaving the rest alone.
A new CU for just the shower and bathroom lighting would allow you to rewire other circuits during decorating cycles in the future.
I often have to add a new CU alongside an existing fusebox when doing bathroom installs. It is usually easier to RCD the whole of the bathroom electrics to save haveing to do the supplementary bonding
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