Replacing an electrical fuseboard (Consumer Unit)

This blog post is all about having an electrical fuse board now known as a consumer unit replaced, what you should expect and how much it will cost.

Having an electrical fuseboard replaced is an involved job and not as simple as some may think, however for the trained professional it is a simple job. Replacing a fuse board with a consumer unit is generally a full days work, depending how big the property is, you can expect the work to take this long for a 3 bedroom house, but why?

An Electrical Installation Certificate

Firstly the electrical installation needs to be tested to make sure it's safe and that the new consumer unit won't trip when the circuits are connected it, if there is an electrical fault then this will need to be rectified before the fuse board is replaced. Once the installation has been inspected and tested the board can then be replaced, the tails (wires) feeding the board need to be replace and most times the earthing has to be upgraded too, sometimes the cables for the circuits are too short and then need to be extended which can add more time to the process.Once all this has been done a few more tests need to be done and an electrical installation certificate needs to be completed. 

If you have had or having a fuse board replaced for a consumer unit, and you have been told it will only take a couple of hours then it is possible the job will not be done properly!

How much will it cost?

I once quoted to change a fuse board, when I followed up with the customer to see if he wanted to go ahead with the work he said he'd found someone who could do it cheaper, When I asked how much I was given the reply £210, I was shocked (no pun intended) to hear this as the materials cost alone was was over £120 which meant he was only going to charge £90 for labour/overheads, I asked the customer if he'd asked the electrician (I use the term loosely) how long it would take - he was told it would be about a couple of hours! 

I strongly feel that the customer would not have had a good job done in this instance or been done properly, if you are quoted these sort of figures the I would definitely get a second opinion.

Prices as ever vary from electrician to electrician but I know prices can be around £350 - £650 Which includes Labour, materials, testing and certification. Again it depends the size of the electrical installation a studio flat will be less however a five bed house will be more. 

Regards

Paul

Hertford Electrician

Fuse board or Consumer unit. What are they?

An old fuse box

You probably have an old 'fuse board' that under your stairs that controls all of the electrical circuits (the lighting and electrical sockets) in your home.
These days we install what are now called 'consumer units' which are much safer and simpler to use. Consumer units use Miniature Circuit Breakers (MCBs) rather than a fuse, MCBs are a switching device so we can switch off a circuit if we need to work on it, also they protect circuits from certain types of electrical fault therefore keeping us safe.

MCBs are also more convenient as if they trip they can be easily be reset as opposed to old rewireable fuses in fuseboards need to be re wire, which can be fiddly especially if the lights have gone out and you're trying to do it by torch light! different circuits are protected by different rated MCBs Lighting circuits are generally protected a 6Amp MCB and sockets by 32Amp, showers and cookers are protected by 45Amp MCBs other circuits such as a heater are protected by 16Amp or 20 Amp MCBs.

A new Consumer unit

New consumer units also use a Residual Current Devices (RCD) which trip under certain fault conditions, RCDs are great and save lives you may remember advice that if you are using electrical equipment outside then you should use an RCD unit that you plug into a socket and then plug the equipment into the unit. In recent years the electrical regulations have changed to say that all circuits in a home have to be protected by an RCD. RCDs can be Identified by a 'T' or test button on them, RCDs should be tested by pressing the 'T' button on a regular basis every 3 months.

New consumer units have a big red switch on them this is the main switch this switch controls every circuit that  is covered by the new consumer unit switching it off will cut all power to every circuit.
Regardless of whether you have a fuseboard or consumer unit every circuit/ fuse or breaker should be labeled as to it's function so that if you need to turn it off you won't need to turn off every circuit. With a fuse board if the upstairs sockets trip out you can locate the correct fuse easily to be able to rewire it.

Regards

Paul
Hertford Electrician