Daughter is in Birmingham, she's looking to replace her consumer unit (I think that's the name of it - with the fuses in).
What does the team think would be a reasonable price for this? 2 bed terraced, nothing fancy.
She just had a quote for £350 which I reckon is at least £100 too high. I've never done it but I reckon three hours work (say £120) plus the cost of the box and various bits (another £120) tops. Am I mean?
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It sadly isn't as simple as replacing a consumer unit. How old is the existing wiring? What type of circuit protection is on the existing unit? Is it fuses or MCBs?
Most sparks will want to do a full inspection of the electrics before changing a consumer unit, because if there is an unknown fault it is likely to trip the new unit, where as the old one wouldn't trip.
£300 is about the going rate for a simple swap and if you're wiring is fairly modern this is probably all that is needed.
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What Rattle said.
If something goes wrong, then you'll be glad you weren't doing it yourself. I suspect you'll find that your insurance company might have something to say also.
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And if you go down the DIY route, in England and Wales you have to get the council to inspect the work under part P, which ends up costing what the labour would be if you got a pro do it in the first place.
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OK, that's good advice all, thanks. I wasn't thinking of trying it myself but can see that there could be problems.
I've now sent her a mail to say the minimum spec is:
1) A NICEIC qualified electrician
2) 17th edition consumer unit
3) A certificate
4) Tails/bonding upgrade/replacement
House is about 35 years old, ex Council, purchase survey only noted old fusebox but then they don't really look much at wiring do they.
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Yeah likely to be the original 14th edition wiring so wiring should be copper and the lighting should be earthed, so after the tails (if required but doesn't the LEB have to do that?) and earth boding is upgraded it should be fine.
There is a slightly chance aluminium cable was used, if so the entire house would need to be rewired as this was used in the early 70's due to copper shortages.
Our house is 1906 build with a 1980 rewire (it had electricity from the day it was built) and we need to get the sparks in to do a full inspection, do a complete rewire of the ringmain (we need extra sockets so a complete rewire is often easier long term) and upgrading the bonding/consumer unit.
It is well worth doing just for the RCD protection alone.
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I was given a rough esimate by whatever body it is that is responsible for the network (as opposed to tjhe energy suppliers) of £500 for shifting and hanging, subject to viewing the existing unit. As I only wanted the change for convenuience, I abandoned the idea.
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>> And if you go down the DIY route, in England and Wales you have to
>> get the council to inspect the work under part P, which ends up costing what
>> the labour would be if you got a pro do it in the first place.
>>
Once it's been there a few months it'll have aquired a coat of dust and a few spider webs. If anyone ever asks, it's always been like that.
It's bad enough that we're inundated with petty-minded little bureaucrats, let alone going out of the way to pay them.
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or a reinstall with pre part P items :)
gives the benefit of RCD and MCB protection.
Last edited by: pmh on Fri 10 Aug 12 at 08:54
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>>Once it's been there a few months it'll have aquired a coat of dust and a few spider webs. If
>>anyone ever asks, it's always been like that.
Until it catches fire. And burns the house down. And the only bit left is the manufacturing date stamp on a part of the CU that proves that it was only put in recently.
And the insurance company refuses to pay out.
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And the installer is arrested for manslaughter....
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If anyone thinks this is going to stop millions of houses a year burning down they are sadly mistaken.
Oh they dont anyway.
Regulations gone a step to far IMHO
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Zero - you are being naughty.
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merely expressing an opinion
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You know what I mean!
It's not the opinion, it's the chameleon thingy.
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Why replace the present consumer unit anyway?
Old one's aren't unsafe. Ours is ancient, but the man who recently came to fit a new meter connected it up again without a comment or batting an eyelid.
If you want the resettable trip-switch things you can buy them and you just plug them in instead of the fuse blocks.
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I'm sort of the same opinion. It came up in her survey, although not a show stopper, and it is bugging her. I've got an old board here and replaced fuses with circuit breakers, she could do with them as she wouldn't know where to start if a fuse went...
Even with the price of them, I suppose it'd be quite a bit cheaper to do that, so I'm inclined to agree. Anyone any objections :-)
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Got the wylex box with fuse wire fuses no tripping no problems & been checked by YEB when they replaced the mains fuse for an updated one a few years back.
It will remain, though my dad had to get a new one with about 6 circuit breakers on and 2 spares £500.00 there abouts fitted recently.
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We had to have a new one about eighteen months ago and that too was somewhere north of £400.
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An old consumer unit is exactly the sort of thing a survey will say. Easy to see so cheap to write and looks like you've inspected properly.
My house survey was paid for by my employer (new job and a move) so I had the electrical bit done as well as a full survey. However, I talked to an electrician I know, and he said the most important check with older wiring was to check the earth continuity to each socket.
Just so happens I have a proper tester, so I duly checked myself. The electrical survey of course did none of that, and merely quoted for quite unnecessary work. (I'm not a domestic electrician, but I am qualified to work on 11kV switchgear so know my stuff).
An honest electrician will say.
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The local Electricity Supply Company (EON) changed the entire cabling to our house two years ago - due to old age.. They connected it up to the 40 year old consumer unit without a murmer after testing that it all worked and that our house wiring was not about to electrocute us/set us on fire.
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Interesting, madf. Does this appear to be a nationwide thing?
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>> Interesting, madf. Does this appear to be a nationwide thing?
>>
No . The cabling ran along a house wall and the outer sheaf was cracking and peeling off. EON noticed it when they came to inspect the house to replace the destroyed items# caused by a 280V surge - itself caused by a faulty mains cable installed in our area c 1970. (!)
# 2 Infra red PIR controlled spotlamps, one TV splitter/signal amplifier and a small transformer for a radio. They only replaced them if you were aware there had been a surge and claimed.. otherwise they said nowt...
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We've just paid £350 for a replacement unit (suffolk). There were several sheets of paperwork that went with it, followed up by the arrival of a certificate in the post.
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Home electrics - cost to replace consumer unit - Dog
