My electrical consumer unit was changed. The electrician removed the main fuse which had a tape over it saying do not pull out, which has a lead wire seal on it as well. He had to to isolate the supply so needed to pull this fuse out.
I noticed that this seal is now broke. Do the electricity company have to come back and reseal the fuse? Who pays for this?
Sorry, I forgot. The meter is one of these small tiny things that looks like a CH timeclock and flashes.
When I changed my CU some years ago I just phoned them up (Scottish Power) - they came out and resealed the fuse at no charge.
Archie
Hi In olden days the answer would have been Yes and You do but today it is not that easy. A lot of suppliers now are are handing switchgear (your fuse) responsibility back to the property owner. However this is not really the point. You contracted a tradesperson to relace your Consumer unit it is their reponsibility to ensure the job is done to current regulations and these include replacing the seal which they removed ,any costs should be theirs. Have you contacted them? they simply may have overlooked it . Regardless of who is reponsible one thing is certain if you contact the electricity company they will charge you for the work.
HTH CJ
Do electricians carry these seals? Do they have the crimping tool to make the seal?
I do, tho' sometime rescue the existing one.
I have.
JGH
In the grand scheme of things, its a bit of a non issue really. There was a time you might have been able to get it resealed - but its probably hard work these days. Many many of them are unsealed and stay that way.
10 years ago, I changed my parents CU. Phoned their supplier and asked them to reseal the fuse, and they set some flag which the meter reader is suppose to see, telling him to reseal the fuse. A year later, when at least 2 meter readers came and went without doing it, I called again. They told me this flag was already set and the meter reader would reseal it. My mum asked when she next saw a meter reader - they didn't know anything about it, and said they don't do that sort of thing. 10 years later, it's still unsealed, and no one seems to care. Parents just had an extension, and the electrician pulled the fuse to connect up a second CU for the extension wiring, which was easy as it wasn't sealed (but I expect he would just have cut the seal if it was).
I've changed a couple more CU's since then, but did it without pulling the fuse, not that I would recommend doing this yourself. There's the potential for fatal flash burns if you get it wrong (and electrocution, of course).
Why didn't you pull the fuse when it is there? I would never dream of working live that that.
Why didn't you pull the fuse when it is there? I would never dream of working live that that.
That way he dosn't have to reset the clock on the video :-)
Some fuses are too dangerous to risk pulling. Typically the metal clad pre-war ones with internal asbestos insulation. They can be so fragile that pulling the fuse just drags the incoming live straight onto the earthed metal enclosure creating a significant explosion risk.
See the notes here:
Certainly seems so. When the supply company changed our meter last year the fitter snapped the plastic lugs for the seal off the fuse cover so there's no way of sealing it now anyway.
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