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Cartridge Fuses in Domestic Fuse Boxes.

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How many domestic fuse boxes have you come across within the last year that have B.S. 1361 cartridge fuses in them? I came across one today. You know the ones. The 5 Amp cartridge fuse is just a little shorter than a 5 Amp. 13 Amp.  plug fuse. The 15 Amp fuse is coloured blue, 20 Amp yellow and 30 Amp red. The shower fuse may have been 35/40 or 45 Amp. I seem to remember that the 45 Amp carrier was orange. I have an old Wylex carrier here that has a brown cartridge fuse carrier and an orange base. I was impressed years ago with a cartridge fuse maker's video advert. It said that when a fuse blows you fit a new unused cartridge fuse that affords great protection and reliability, unlike with a circuit breaker that after time and many operations may become unreliable. That impressed me at the time.


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    mapj1:

    In the late 1980s I helped as a teenager to put a few in, equally the hot wire boards were still more common, being cheaper, and I think the reign of the cartridge fuse as king was probably quite short - MCBs must have been coming in the 1990, and dominant by 2000 or so. In most cases the transition has been straight from various  noahs ark era stuff, to  BS3036 in the '50s to MCBs of some sort.



    IME the cartridge fuse was never king.

    Cost being one reason but also because you could not see if it had blown.

    It was not uncommon to find the spare cartridges in or near the cartridge fusebox were already blown.

    They looked too good to throw away!

    The wired fuse continued supreme right up into the late 1970s slowly overtaken by MCBs.

    However the MCB was readily available in the mid 1960s.

    Wylex sold push button ones at a pound a pop if I recall correctly.

    When you consider the average cost of materials for rewiring a 3 bedroom house was about £25 in those days you can understand why not many of them were fitted.

    (I fitted MCBs to many pensioner homes who were happy to pay the extra to avoid fiddly fusewire etc.)
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  • 0

    mapj1:

    In the late 1980s I helped as a teenager to put a few in, equally the hot wire boards were still more common, being cheaper, and I think the reign of the cartridge fuse as king was probably quite short - MCBs must have been coming in the 1990, and dominant by 2000 or so. In most cases the transition has been straight from various  noahs ark era stuff, to  BS3036 in the '50s to MCBs of some sort.



    IME the cartridge fuse was never king.

    Cost being one reason but also because you could not see if it had blown.

    It was not uncommon to find the spare cartridges in or near the cartridge fusebox were already blown.

    They looked too good to throw away!

    The wired fuse continued supreme right up into the late 1970s slowly overtaken by MCBs.

    However the MCB was readily available in the mid 1960s.

    Wylex sold push button ones at a pound a pop if I recall correctly.

    When you consider the average cost of materials for rewiring a 3 bedroom house was about £25 in those days you can understand why not many of them were fitted.

    (I fitted MCBs to many pensioner homes who were happy to pay the extra to avoid fiddly fusewire etc.)
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