Whose responsibility?

Its a grey area - although the odds are they`ll sort it for you. Might require a jointer to disconnect and then reconnect afterwards.

The same happened on our last house. I replaced the plastic lugs with nice stainless steel bolts.

Did you earth-bond them? :-)

No, but I figured since the steel latch wasn't earthed, there was no need :-)

I was going to fabricate a meter box from steel to make it more vandal resistant until I had a chat with a friendly leccy company installations guy. He said they would probably refuse to wire into it as they were scared(*) to work with high amp electrical in a metal box :-)

(*) not his words, I read between the lines.

So thats why most of the HV distribution switchgear around has metal casing? I've yet to see a grid switchfarm with plastic casing on the equipment.

I bet they turn that stuff off before they work on it though.

Tried working on a GEC VMX breaker recently ?

Generally do with switchgear, although live line working at HV is commonplace.

If the electricity is the same as the gas meter boxes then onc installed the box becomes the property of the house owner - bit of bugger especially the cavity boxes. The electricity board will probably repair/replace the box but wil charge you, especially if any work is required on their apparatus.

Check with them beforehand. (good luck with the call centres- best be is to ask one of their lads in the vans)

Hope this help

-- Transco_Boo_Hiss