Re terminating ancient cables

The fotos of the old installation with the green DNO cutout are very interesting old gear is certainly more interesting to look at than the new stuff. I wonder if the 2 meters shown are still accurate presumably one is volts the other amps did you try the amps one? It looks like the earthing has been upgraded a bit in recent years  too

Certainly the bit of SSE round here (as DNO) do exactly that, and quite promptly, so at most they mean 'no-one local'.

Interesting internal photos, - be aware while it is open that there may be hairy asbestos pads under the ceramics, even though the rest looks benign.

  I have not seen quite that  live screw 'wedge-lock' arrangement before, but I can imagine it is possible  to over tighten to the point that just turning the screw the other way does not move the wedge out. Int rather depends if the bolt is threaded into the wedge and pulls on the flat, or is threaded into the flat and pushes on the wedge. In any case, while fascinating it is not yours to play with and really SSE should be planning its replacement.

I presume your Emails already start with Subject  Defective Cast Iron Cut-out Replacement. to get them in  the right mood.

100% Alan, I just wish they had a form of communication that was better than one reply to a tenth of an email every two weeks!  


Infuriating dealing with such incompetence!

Hi Mike, 


The DNO is actually the IDNO, SSE.


They stated more than once that they had no Asbestos trained personnel. 


Still awaiting a reply on scheduling an engineering visit! 

Are they lugged fuses bolted in then ? If so and over tightened, then the fuse tabs may have been sunk into the soft copper, if that has happened, then no amount of pulling straight out will remove the fuses, but some side-strike is needed.

In any case, it is up to the DNO to replace it, as it is clearly their kit,  probably by cutting it out as one piece, as others have suggested, as that sidesteps the awkward asbestos questions.  Which DNO is your area ? No folk to  follow the asbestos procedures seems a bit unlikely, it makes you wonder what they would do if the fuses blew.

I only wish ours was in such good condition! 


The inside has mixed porcelain fuse carriers with unknown fuses as they would not come out almost as though they had welded themselves in. The flash guards you see in this one are not all there and the ones that are have long since broken. Lock it up and throw away the key was the decision until DNO will attend, although they have declared they have no asbestos trained staff so will refuse to maintain it themselves.


Pulling teeth at the moment.

Yeah... it's a different installation, sorry, I should have made that clearer. I added the photos to show others the inside of an (identical) cutout.


The outgoing cables are new. The purpose of the shutdown was to replace the somewhat aged oil switch with a modern HBC fused switch (we realised that the oil switch had never been serviced & nobody was willing to operate it on load!) The pics show the cutout with new cables terminated & waiting for the DNO to re-energise. 


I initially expected that the DNO would decline to pull the fuses & insist on replacing that metal cutout, but the guy who turned up took a look at it & declared that he was willing to pull the fuses.

At first, I was confused, but then I realised that the photos show a completely different installation, which appears to have been looked after and in good order.

One thing immediately struck me.. The cables outgoing to the cutouts have been re-taped with new colours, but my old mind immediately parsed it as white* phase, neutral, red phase, and blue phase (I'm slightly colourblind, not a good trait for an electrician, I know, i've heard all the jokes... and had parsed brown as 'red') Then I zoomed in and saw the link on 'blue phase' and went 'oh... white is grey... and... what a horrible mistake to make.


* no I'm not THAT old, only in my 40s... but i've worked on some ancient installations and know the history of the yellow phase at one time being white. Even have some red-white-blue threecore in my museum (of that thread fame)... PE insulated and sheathed, and yes it's very flammable.. but less so than VIR or TRS.  And no earth.. (wasn't called a CPC back in them days!)