Any electricians in the house?

[botswanasafarilovers]

Hi all,

So i've moved into a property that has a really old consumer unit. Around the 1980's. I was looking to upgrade this consumer unit to a more modern one. I've been quoted various prices from £400-800 all of which seem reasonable to me however, one electrician has said that given the age of the unit, it's very very likely that replacing and upgrading the consumer unit , will end up in the unit randomly and constantly tripping and so it is most likely going to be needing the house rewired and so I should either look to rewire the house including the consumer unit , or just leave it all alone for now if there's no major issues or concerns warranting the upgrade/replacement.

So I guess my question is:

Is this true?
why didn't any other electrician say this? is that because they were goign to come out, replace the unit and hope it doesn't trip but if it does, I'm now forced to rewire the house or have constantly tripping electric ....aka, more money for them? or is it just not likely to be tripping the electric so they didn't mention it?

Would you just leave it all as is since its not causing any issues?

do you have children in the house?
updating to a current regulations will mean you get RCD on the circuits, which obviously improves safety enormously
however RCD are, by definition, more sensitive but if the re is nothing wrong with the current circuits then it is not suddenly going to trip for no reason. If it does trip then you know you have a problem that can be dealt with

it appears you have the classic case of tradesmen pricing for the job you asked for and someone pricing for belt and braces extra work that does not need doing immediately but would be cost efficient if done at the same time, but a waste of money if not needed immediately.
.
in other words, flip a coin and decide.

Hi there

thank you for responding so quickly. there's no children in the house, it's just two adults. yeah I was thinking of the safety point of view from both us and the appliances/equipment. the previous owner's most demanding item was probably the electric shower, but beyond this it would of a kettle etc.

whereas we're goin there with computer equipment (as I work from home) and so I wouldn't want anything happening to that nor would I want there to be any fault or accident whereby we could be hurt. so it made me feel upgrading the unit would be the right decision without thinking I'd need to rewire the house!

do you reckon if it did trip, that this would be a specific isolated fault to a certain area or wire etc but would not require the house to be rewired? one concern is if we upgraded and then discovered we're now forced to rewire as we can't "undo" so to speak

As Wot23 said - Spin a coin.

I think the general consensus among electrical institutions is that a rewire is recommended after about 30 years.

Beyond that - It's probably fine, but not everybody wants to put their name to it!

My late 1970's house (bought new by my parents, so I know the history) had the original fuse box replaced with an RCD unit about 5 years ago...

It was installed by a member of extended family who is a qualified electrician.

At no point was a complete re-wire advised or suggested. And there have been no issues whatsoever since installation - No "false trips" of the RCD.

It's been officially certified & was also inspected by whatever organisation inspects electricians work.

(they asked if they could put us down as one of the "X number of jobs per Y number of years" they have to have checked by an independent assessor as part of their qualification or trade body membership).

So everything "above board & legit".

However...

In the years since, a handful of sockets, light switches & ceiling light fittings have been opened for various DIY/Maintenance tasks and the wires, although still safe & sound - are showing signs of aging (the coloured sheaths around each wire starting to decay).

The house is structurally sound but is, in Estate Agent speak, "In need of modernisation" - I'm not planning on staying here forever, so while everything is working fine - I'll leave it as it is.

But if I were the next person buying this place - I'd be starting with a re-wire - Rather than get everywhere decorated, then have to rip it all out again when the time inevitably comes!

As for what would happen if you didn't (besides risk of fire or electric shock, depending on where the wire fails) - Only the circuit (wire) that's degraded would be affected & trip.

Circuits are typically (but not exclusively) done in groups, so:

"Upstairs lights"
"Downstairs lights"
"Upstairs sockets"
"Downstairs sockets"
"Cooker"
"Water Heater"

Whichever wire fails - that's the circuit you'll lose. But by that stage, if one wire has degraded to that extent - the others won't be far behind if they're all the same age.

If the fuse box is replaced and circuits do start tripping out why is that ?

Because they are unsafe.

So maybe ask yourself the question, why do I want to replace the consumer unit, which you might think currently is old and unsafe, but not replace the wiring, which if it trips out with new RCDs, is old and unsafe ?

I am not an expert in domestic wiring, but I would be surprised if there isn't a piece of test equipment that an electrician can use to measure the elc on each circuit in the cu and go round testing all the plugs etc that would tell you whether the place needs to be rewired or not. Maybe a full electrical inspection would tell you this - I don't know.

In any case before I went for a rewire I would want some sort of objective proof that a rewire was necessary, not some statement that it "might" need a rewire, as these are disruptive and expensive. It does not seem to me like you have this.

Hi, yes that's exactly it. I wanted to replace the CU because from a safety point of view, I will be putting in a few computers and equipment and want them to be safe. I also want us to be physically safe too. What I don't want though, is to have to rewire the house because we simply do not have that kind of money right now. I also work from home (hence computers) so to have electric tripping all the time , I don't think my employer would be happy so this is very much a pre-planned thing, I would have to a) have funds b) plan heavily around when and how etc before a wire would be possible. So I'm at a point of deciding whether to leave everything as is....and then upgrade the CU when doing the rewire, or just do the CU (if it does not require rewire).

I also take your point regarding safety too.

I also believe there is a report that can at least somewhat indicate the health of the wiring but how accurate this , I have no idea. it's called EICR certificate apparently. We're arranging for this to be carried out on Saturday morning so i'll know more then I guess!

I think the EICR is a good low cost way of finding out the general state.

I don't know whether it tests for elc/faults on every circuit (this is what will make RCDs trip if you have a new box). Myabe you can ask them and find out !

There is also the issue that if you do get a fault, it may be inside a socket and not with the wiring itself. Sockets are generally easy, cheap and fast to replace. Wiring much less so.

I run PCs from home and we have power cuts in the sticks a bit more often than in the big city so I have UPS on each PC, not a huge one, just big enough to be able to run the system for 30 mins or so and shut the system down safely during a cut and stop the voltage surge costs about £100 per PC.