Smart meter installed and now one or more circuits dead

itm2

An engineer is at my Mum's house at the moment, installing smart meters (my Mum is 96). He has just phoned me to say that some of the electrical sockets are now dead (including the one used by the fridge/freezer). He's saying that she needs to get an electrician out to look at it. Should I expect this guy to fix this, as everything was fine before he arrived?

daveaspy

oh gosh - did he not say why? I can only think that he found a safety issue that meant he had to isolate those circuits and its not his job to fix them?

MWT

itm2 said:

He's saying that she needs to get an electrician out to look at it. Should I expect this guy to fix this, as everything was fine before he arrived?

No, he has done nothing beyond turning off the main power and turning it back on again, if the wiring was so poor that it didn't survive that then he is not to blame.

He would not be permitted and probably not qualified to fix anything from the consumer unit onwards anyway.

Not a criticism of you, but I would always suggest having someone else on site to help out with this sort of problem if at all possible when there is a very elderly person involved.

It may just be a matter of figuring out what is tripping a breaker on that circuit for example and unplugging that to 'fix' the problem.

btr30

I presume there has been a current overload on reinstatement of power. If it is resettable mcb it should just be a case of switching appliances off and bringing them back on one by one to see what is causing the trip. If it is re-wireable fuses, same process but replacing fuse wire each time it blows.
As issue is likely caused by external appliance, not sure it is installer’s issue to resolve, but given the circumstance think he should spend some time to assist.

tux900

Agreed, it sounds like a latent fault that's manifested itself as a result of the inevitable movement of meter tails or something when swapping the meter. If the fault is within the consumer unit then it shouldn't be too difficult to remedy (might just be a case of the screws being tightened or at worse a new MCB for that circuit).

Whilst waiting for an electrician I'd suggest getting the fridge freezer plugged into an extension lead (sorry if that's stating the obvious but thought it worth mentioning in case it wasn't!).

wittynamegoeshere

It may be possible that just the act of disconnecting the power caused one of the trip switches to flick off.  It may just need switching back on again.  Get someone to look at them, and switch back on if one is off.

Otherwise, get an electrician in.  In the unlikely event that the meter fitter somehow damaged something then you can reclaim the cost of fixing it from them.  I doubt that you could ask them to pay for someone to switch it back on for £50 though, if that's all it needs.

itm2

Thanks for all the feedback. He has since turned the supply off, then back on again. At first there was no power to the sockets in the kitchen (again), but bizzarrely when Mum turned on the light in the kitchen the power to the sockets was restored. It sounds like maybe a loose connection on the fusebox???

wittynamegoeshere

If it's intermittent then definitely get it looked at.  This sort of thing can often mean a loose terminal, which will mean there's a small but very worrying risk of overheating/fire.

There shouldn't normally be any connection whatsoever between a light fitting and the sockets.  If it's really ancient then get ready for some bad news.

itm2

wittynamegoeshere said:

If it's intermittent then definitely get it looked at.  This sort of thing can often mean a loose terminal, which will mean there's a small but very worrying risk of overheating/fire.

There shouldn't normally be any connection whatsoever between a light fitting and the sockets.  If it's really ancient then get ready for some bad news.

Yes I was thinking there might me some very bad (and expensive) news coming. A new consumer unit and about 30 years worth of regulatory compliance to catch up on :0(

wittynamegoeshere

30 years shouldn't be a problem, at least the cables will be modern plastic coated.  A new consumer unit isn't that frightening a job, and not too messy.

We've got relatives with 1960s wiring, which is natural rubber insulated and literally crumbling apart.  I've tried telling them but they won't listen - as far as they're concerned if it works then it's OK.  A total re-wire is a heck of a job though, you end up redecorating and probably recarpeting the entire house.

MWT

wittynamegoeshere said:

We've got relatives with 1960s wiring, which is natural rubber insulated and literally crumbling apart.  I've tried telling them but they won't listen - as far as they're concerned if it works then it's OK.  A total re-wire is a heck of a job though, you end up redecorating and probably recarpeting the entire house.

I see your 1960's and raise you 1930's ...

Cloth covered wiring that had disintegrated leaving only bare wires running parallel to each other... Was very happy to find that before anything really bad happened...

Oddly the first few inches of the insulation had survived so looked at least nominally safe until you looked a bit further up the line...