Consumer Unit Installations

A consumer unit or fuse board is a vital component for distributing electricity evenly and providing a power supply to subsidiary circuits throughout your home and performs two main functions:

• Protecting cables from overload
• Protecting humans from electric shock

All households are different and all use electricity in different ways so there is no such thing as a ‘standard’ consumer unit; however, there are only four main types of unit:

Main Switch

Supplied empty of all protection devices other than the main switch and considered as the best circuit protection solution as each circuit is protected from overload and earth leakage individually by Residual Current Breakers & Overloads (RCBO’s).

Dual Residual Current Device (RCD)

Supplied with the main switch and two RCD’s and provides a cheaper solution however circuit design should be taken into consideration; despite their limitations, these consumer units are extremely popular due to their cost and most ‘fully loaded’ consumer units will be dual RCD.

High-Integrity

Supplied with three neutral bars which in essence provides three banks of circuits to offer the best of both worlds; allowing for the use of RCBO’s and two banks of Mini Circuit Breakers (MCB’s) they offer total critical circuit separation and highly cost effective protection for standard circuits. They are increasingly popular because they make circuit design easy and are cost effective.

RCD Incomer

A special type of unit generally used in workshops, garages, garden offices, or sheds with a smaller number of circuits; it does not have a main switch and all incoming electricity is managed by the RCD. They offer no circuit separation meaning a residual fault on any circuit will knock-out the power to all other circuits, they are therefore almost never used in a main dwelling.

Today all consumer units must be residual current device (RCD) protected for your safety should an electrical fault occur.

If you are concerned that your consumer unit might be out-of-date or non-compliant with the latest regulations, our NICEIC accredited electricians can supply and install a modern consumer unit, that will provide the safety protection necessary as stated by the 18th Edition wiring regulations.

For any advice and support regarding electrical distribution matters throughout your home please do not hesitate to contact our friendly, experienced team, who will gladly specify potential solutions to your problems and provide tailored advice where needed. Whether you need a brand-new consumer unit to bring an older property up to standard or you have just moved home and you would like the existing board thoroughly checked and tested our electricians will ensure everything is working safely and effectively or provide a solution for them to do so.