Board upgrade/new rcd

de78

pretty much title, I recently had a new mcb added to provide lights to shed just outside the house and the electrician casually mentioned that the top row of the board was totally full and as the bottom row is heavily cluttered with old style fittings i might want to consider modernizing it by replacing the old trip, elcb & bottle style fuse as new components are smaller and would allow for further expansion down the road. JUst wondering is it worth the expense or should i consider a sub board if i do need more mcb added in the future.

aido79

de78 wrote: »

pretty much title, I recently had a new mcb added to provide lights to shed just outside the house and the electrician casually mentioned that the top row of the board was totally full and as the bottom row is heavily cluttered with old style fittings i might want to consider modernizing it by replacing the old trip, elcb & bottle style fuse as new components are smaller and would allow for further expansion down the road. JUst wondering is it worth the expense or should i consider a sub board if i do need more mcb added in the future.

Personally I would replace the entire board with a new board with mcb's and rcd's or rcbo's but it depends on how much you want to spend and how safe your existing boards and components are.
Any chance you could post a picture of it?

de78

aido79 wrote: »

Personally I would replace the entire board with a new board with mcb's and rcd's or rcbo's but it depends on how much you want to spend and how safe your existing boards and components are.
Any chance you could post a picture of it?

no hassle, don't worry I have a cover just took off the cover so you can have a detailed look.


Link to photo





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aido79

de78 wrote: »

no hassle, don't worry I have a cover just took off the cover so you can have a detailed look.

just can't add images or urls yet, you can see I here tho
imgur com gallery Ahc5pRn

Its not the worst I've seen, it just looks a bit ugly because the guy who did didn't seem to take much pride in his work. I don't think it would warrant a new board, maybe just a bigger enclosure and change the elcb and screw in fuse.

2011

Red and black cabling within a distribution board means it is really old. We haven't used those colours in a long time, I would guess the seventies.

A few things can be improved apart from neatness:
1) Busbar should be used to connect all MCBs
2) MCBs of different heights means that the busbar can be under strain. New MCBs of the same type would resolve this.
3) Panel flex used wherever possible results in better (lower resistance) connections.
4) Modern main switch fuse are a slimmer, neater and often safer unit.
5) Earth bar and one of the neutral bars (on the right) look crammed. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the terminations are not well made.

When was the board last assessed / tested? If never the RCDs may stick and fail to operate under fault conditions.

Personally I would upgrade this. Adding a sub board would mean increasing the load on the main board which is not in great condition. Also not as neat a solution. I suspect that it will uncover other issues. Money well spent.

Nothing wrong with having 3 RCDs, I'm just wondering why.

de78

2011 wrote: »

Red and black cabling within a distribution board means it is really old. We haven't used those colours in a long time, I would guess the seventies.

A few things can be improved apart from neatness:
1) Busbar should be used to connect all MCBs
2) MCBs of different heights means that the busbar can be under strain. New MCBs of the same type would resolve this.
3) Panel flex used wherever possible results in better (lower resistance) connections.
4) Modern main switch fuse are a slimmer, neater and often safer unit.
5) Earth bar and one of the neutral bars (on the right) look crammed. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the terminations are not well made.

When was the board last assessed / tested? If never the RCDs may stick and fail to operate under fault conditions.

Personally I would upgrade this. Adding a sub board would mean increasing the load on the main board which is not in great condition. Also not as neat a solution. I suspect that it will uncover other issues. Money well spent.

Nothing wrong with having 3 RCDs, I'm just wondering why.

The house was assessed in 2011/2012 for hse reasons (Which I won't get into) and it passed. since then we've had a shower added and 2/3 new things thus new mcb and have no problems. I'm personally not supposed to a new board but my only concern is would all the old wiring have to be replaced with the new twin and earth

2011

de78 wrote: »

my only concern is would all the old wiring have to be replaced with the new twin and earth

Don’t worry about this. New regulations can not be enforced retrospectively. Therefore cables would only need to be replaced if there was an issue with them such as they fail an installation resistance test, which is unlikely.