- Reaction score
- 5,173
Got a job lined up, the customer needs a new consumer unit and partial rewire as its a bit hit and miss and with joined circuits between both upstairs and downstairs ring circuits. and also the lighting circuit is just one rather than split into different floors. The consumer unit is a old rewireable wylex job.
There is no isolator and it is the old question of calling the DNO to de-energise so i can fit a double pole isolator. Western Power charge nearly double the cost of turning the supply on and off to fit the isolator themselves. On a good day the guy will wait whilst you do it and then put the fuse back in. just got to have the new tails and isolator ready to connect in once the supply is off.
On this job though they have asked for a picture of the service head as they have said given the age of some of the installs in local area they don't pull the fuse no more, they turn off / cut the supply outside and will often replace the whole service head now as its to dangerous for the engineers. They are sending somebody to now have a look before hand to decide what is safest. Either way they have 3-4 week lead in time to come pull the fuse or change the service head. so cant't do job until then
On the new equipment even though we are not supposed to, i am sure many of us have broken seals and pulled the fuse out. in no way do i condone it. we each have to assess the risk. but with the older stuff i would never risk it. you hear stories of them breaking apart and arcing; it just isn't worth risk.
My argument to them was if its so dangerous you might want to change the service head then why are you charging the customer for it... admittedly they are going to charge around £80 inc vat. which is there standard de-energising charge. Anybody have experience of this and possibly getting them to do this for nothing?
The service head by the way is a siemens job- the seal is even in one piece!. Customer thinks it has been in since house was built. (house is early 1960's, customer been there since 1976) Not seen one of these ones before though anybody guess its age?
There is no isolator and it is the old question of calling the DNO to de-energise so i can fit a double pole isolator. Western Power charge nearly double the cost of turning the supply on and off to fit the isolator themselves. On a good day the guy will wait whilst you do it and then put the fuse back in. just got to have the new tails and isolator ready to connect in once the supply is off.
On this job though they have asked for a picture of the service head as they have said given the age of some of the installs in local area they don't pull the fuse no more, they turn off / cut the supply outside and will often replace the whole service head now as its to dangerous for the engineers. They are sending somebody to now have a look before hand to decide what is safest. Either way they have 3-4 week lead in time to come pull the fuse or change the service head. so cant't do job until then
On the new equipment even though we are not supposed to, i am sure many of us have broken seals and pulled the fuse out. in no way do i condone it. we each have to assess the risk. but with the older stuff i would never risk it. you hear stories of them breaking apart and arcing; it just isn't worth risk.
My argument to them was if its so dangerous you might want to change the service head then why are you charging the customer for it... admittedly they are going to charge around £80 inc vat. which is there standard de-energising charge. Anybody have experience of this and possibly getting them to do this for nothing?
The service head by the way is a siemens job- the seal is even in one piece!. Customer thinks it has been in since house was built. (house is early 1960's, customer been there since 1976) Not seen one of these ones before though anybody guess its age?
