New consumer unit - now no electric

colin25710

We are pensioners who had trouble with the consumer unit occasionally tripping, which just needed to be reset. We called in home serve to look at the problem and we're told if we had a new unit it would be less likely to trip. Eventually last Tuesday they replaced the board but it trips totally leaving us with just the cooker socket, so no heating and no light in or power in 10 rooms. They say that they can not do anything untill they get access to all electrical power points. Unfortunately my partner is a hoarder and we still have 4 rooms completely full without having access to the sockets ,we are slowly trying to clear the rooms but it will take weeks. They say they cannot put the old unit back,
Does any one have any suggestions on how we could get the power back. Thanks

SaverRate

Move the hoarded stuff out of the way so they can get to sockets. I think thats the only way to be honest, without running new cabling to sockets (which they would need access to) 

BarelySentientAI

What that means is that there was an undetected electrical fault in your house that the better protection in the new consumer unit has found.

It might have saved you from an electric shock or a house fire.  Don't get the old one back.

You need to make sure the electrician can get to all the bits they need to.

There are other types of consumer unit that might allow some of the power to be on and other bits off (for technically minded readers I'm thinking RCBOs if this is an RCD trip), but that's a lot of possibly unnecessary work if there is a simple problem that could be fixed with sufficient access.

tacpot12

It might be possible to isolate the fault that is causing the tripping. Whether this is possible will depend on the new board that has been fitted and the configuration of the wiring in your home. A different board might allow the fault to be isolated. 

Can you post a clear photograph of the consumer unit showing all the circuit breakers and the lables for the circuits? With a photo, it might be possible to advice whether a different board would allow more flexibility in isolating the fault. 

I do think you would benefit from a good local electrican getting involved, as Home Serve should not have sold you a new fuse board without finding the cause of the tripping. I think you should sue them if the cause is found to be the wiring in your home. If you have home insurance, you can check to see if you have legal expenses cover. If you do, you can call the legel helpline and ask them to sue Home Serve for you.  

colin25710

Pic of old and new setups - on the old the lights were on the old fuses on right and never had any problem with them. Spoken to managers at Homserve and Roxon and refuse to come back until all sockets are accessible

BarelySentientAI

So everything on the left-hand side of the new box is off, and everything on the right-hand side is on.

Turn off the five left-hand switches, then turn on the left-hand one with yellow button.  It should stay on.

Turn on each of the five switches one at a time with a few minutes between each.  When you turn one of them on, the one with yellow will turn off.  That one is the circuit with the problem.

Leave the problem one turned off and turn all the others on.  That will be the best you can do until the electrician can come back.

colin25710

BarelySentientAI
 Turned off 5 left hand switches - turned the yellow switch on and it immediately turns itself off again

BarelySentientAI

colin25710 said:

BarelySentientAI
 Turned off 5 left hand switches - turned the yellow switch on and it immediately turns itself off again

Now that's very strange.  With all the ones to the left of it turned off, there should be nothing supplied through the yellow one and nothing to trip it.

That almost suggests there's a fault inside the consumer unit itself - possible but unusual.

colin25710

BarelySentientAI
Tried again numerous times - on one occasion yellow switch stayed on with 2 black ones - but after 30 seconds switched itself off

BarelySentientAI

Don't try any more - something odd is happening and it needs an electrician to be there in person.

Risteard

BarelySentientAI said:

colin25710 said:

BarelySentientAI
 Turned off 5 left hand switches - turned the yellow switch on and it immediately turns itself off again

Now that's very strange.  With all the ones to the left of it turned off, there should be nothing supplied through the yellow one and nothing to trip it.

That almost suggests there's a fault inside the consumer unit itself - possible but unusual.

More likely a borrowed neutral. However this DB isn't even labelled. The alteration to the electrical installation should have been inspected and tested before being put into service. It would appear that this didn't happen!