Two houses fed of one houses mains - what are my rights.

[LewisM]

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Copper bit with black around melter. I don't know exactly how it works, but basically the western power guy said next door might need to have their drive taken up as they have no direct power, it comes from our side of the house and a wire through the wall, but it all affected our fusebox... I think. Its now been replaced with an RCD board. Western power are due out to separate the wires.

Surprised that the neutral melted there that's a factory termination

 

[Guywithahouse]

I don't know how all of this works, but basically when he pulled the black wires out to disconnect the electric, it knocked next doors out, they called western power who came out and said both our fuseboards were running off the same volt supply and likley all the houses in the street are the same unless they've had new electrics. Said modern day life means people are finding out about it now because of the strain on the voltage supply.

Or maybe it was all a load of waffle.

 

[westward10]

Seen that happen on those Proteus boards before. Pulling the service head fuse will kill next doors power, theirs and yours are protected by the same service head fuse. The electrician should have realised this it is staring them in the face.
Is the rcbo on the left of the mcbs the new circuit, I am amazed they managed to connect into it as it must nearly be touching the earth bar.

 

[7029 dave]

Thanks for the pics, yes its a shared cutout fuse, the melted busbar is part of the consumer unit, it must of been loose, although factory fitted. I always check for tightness.

 

[Guywithahouse]

Seen that happen on those Proteus boards before. Pulling the service head fuse will kill next doors power, theirs and yours are protected by the same service head fuse. The electrician should have realised this it is staring them in the face.
Is the rcbo on the left of the mcbs the new circuit, I am amazed they managed to connect into it as it must nearly be touching the earth bar.

No idea what you're asking me but irl try and take a picture tomorrow of the new board.

 

[Guywithahouse]

Thanks for the pics, yes its a shared cutout fuse, the melted busbar is part of the consumer unit, it must of been loose, although factory fitted. I always check for tightness.

This electrician came out a few weeks before and tightened all of the connections, yet it still got hot and burned again?

 

[Lucien Nunes]

The melting was caused by a loose screw, simple as that. Where the flat copper neutral link from the bottom of the main switch is screwed on to the right hand end of the brass terminal bar (with all the black neutral wires) the screw was loose and the resulting resistance caused the bar to overheat. If the contact surfaces were not properly cleaned before re-tightening the screw, the tarnish layer formed by the first round of overheating would have continued to cause poor contact and more heating. There's no mystery here, it was a bad connection not put right. Nothing to do with next door.

The sparky presumably pulled out the DNO's main fuse, which as noted above is shared by the two houses, and at that point they lost their supply. He should have spotted that and not pulled the fuse, although it's not a bad thing to get the two houses onto separate supplies now that you are some way down that path.

 

[Deleted account]

The melting in your board has nothing to do with the western power issue. That is an issue that has become apparent during works. So th3y will not be liable for works.

I see the supply conductors under your board going through the wall. Those cables are a very old type of cable no longer recognised in the regs. cloth covered.

western power definitely need to sort that.

In fairness to your electrician there is not much of next doors feeds on show, so he could have missed it.

tightness of connections does help, but if an installation is overloaded it will still melt. If the insulation has been d@maged an the neutral bar once it may have lost its integrity and be more susceptible to heat In future.

 

[brianmoooore]

In fairness to your electrician there is not much of next doors feeds on show, so he could have missed it.

Only if he did the work in the dark with sunglasses on. The wires going through the wall are right in the middle of the work area.

 

[7029 dave]

Only if he did the work in the dark with sunglasses on. The wires going through the wall are right in the middle of the work area.

Arrangements with the next door neighbour should have been made before pulling the fuse fairy.