Trying to understand the recommendations from DEIC

ChasingtheWelshdream

What a great explanation, thank you. That explains to me why ours is being replaced in terms I can understand (no RCD in our case), but I didn’t really know why.

tristanjourney

Ectophile said:

....

Personal opinion...  If you have no RCD's, then it should be upgraded.  If you have one, it's worth considering.  If you have two, it's probably not worth the cost and inconvenience for very little improvement in safety.

Thanks. That's super helpful!

tristanjourney

Hi all,

I found the consumer unit and here is how it looks like now.

Looks like it has one RCD for sockets, but no RCD for other switches.

The new question I have is: There is no space left in the consumer unit, how to add RCD? Do I have to replace a consumer unit that has more spaces?

Thanks all!

mi-key

i think it would be worth replacing. Its a small older unit, so a new one will give you a lot more spaces, which is also handy if you need to add any electrics in the future. You can also then add an RCD.

It was quite normal to have just the main sockets RCD protected though, and the lights and main coooker and power shower not protected with an RCD. With new regulations lighting circuits also need an RCD, although this is not retrospective so there is no requirement to add one, but it would give a bit of extra protection

When you buy a new consumer unit it normally comes with all the breakers, RCDs, main switch etc... with it 

Risteard

tristanjourney said:

When we purchase the house, the seller provided a DOMESTIC ELECTRICAL INSTALLATION CONDITION REPORT. Now we want to do what has been recommended from the report.

First of all, the overall assessment result is SATISFACTORY. However, there are in total 19 recommendations. 18 of them are C3 (improvement recommended) and 1 of them is F1 (further investigation required without delay).

The F1 is:

Inspection Schedule Item 4.19: RCD(s) provided for additional protection/requirements - includes RCBOs (411.3.3; 415.1) requires further investigation without delay.

In the section 8 (general condition of the installation), the report also mentions:

GENERAL ELECTRICS IN GOOD CONDITION
WOULD RECOMMEND A NEW RCBO CONSUMER UNIT IS INSTALLED

I am completely a noob in electricity safety. I did some google search, but still couldn't figure out what to do.

What exactly is the recommendation? Is it to install a new consumer unit (because there isn't one yet)? Or completely replace the existing consumer unit? Or add RCBO to the existing consumer unit? Or anything else?

Thank you.

Any FI - Further Investigation (not F1) - Observation must result in an Unsatisfactory report.

That said, I can't understand what the company responsible for the Report are claiming requires further investigation with respect to additional protection by RCDs. It's either present or it isn't, and either working or it isn't. There's nothing to investigate. Therefore, if the company believed the issue to be potentially dangerous then a C2 Observation should have been applied rather than FI.