Electrics Question

shinytop

Any idea what the large grey metal box is?  The cables at the bottom come from the meter and the ones above go to the three fuse boxes, which I assume are for the Economy 7 storage heaters.  The other box is the RCD board for the rest of the house.   


 

[Deleted User]

Hi,

can we have a photie, please.

shinytop

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

can we have a photie, please.

D'ho !  I knew I'd forgotten something...

cajef

I may be wrong and maybe an electrician will correct me but it looks like it could be a three phase distribution box.

TELLIT01

It certainly looks like a commercial installation rather than something you would expect to see in a house.

shinytop

It turned out it wasn't locked after all.  This is what's inside.

Ectophile

My first thought is don't poke your fingers in there.  There are live terminals exposed.  It should have been locked.

The black box is a "contactor" - a big relay for switching heavy loads on and off.  So it's most likely used to switch all the heating on and off without overloading the timeswitch.  I assume you have a big building with a 3-phase supply.

stragglebod

This is in a house? Are there kids? You need to get that secured immediately. And by 'secured' I mean beyond just locking it.

shinytop

stragglebod said:

This is in a house? Are there kids? You need to get that secured immediately. And by 'secured' I mean beyond just locking it.

What do you mean by 'secured' ?  

shinytop

Ectophile said:

My first thought is don't poke your fingers in there.  There are live terminals exposed.  It should have been locked.

The black box is a "contactor" - a big relay for switching heavy loads on and off.  So it's most likely used to switch all the heating on and off without overloading the timeswitch.  I assume you have a big building with a 3-phase supply.

Thanks, but just like I don't poke my fingers in live light sockets or spinning machinery, I won't be doing it here either.  It was locked; I opened it. It's in a house built (as a house) around 1990 and has night storage heaters so that might explain the 3 phase supply if that's what it is.   

Homer_home

It is a 3 phase supply