Ah yes the coloured dots.  The Wylex standard for the open wire fuses to BS 3036.

As beloved for all installations from about 1950 to about 1980. Often could look and see if the bit of card with the spare fuse wire wrapped around it had dropped into the box down the gap at the back where the wall is not flat. Of course quite often the wire size you actually need has run out.

so the following often found.

White = 5A  - replace with single strand from off cut of flex. Light fittings, fans clocks and TV amplifier if house has  TV.

Blue = 15 A    replace with 3 of above twisted.  Immersion heater or circuits to outbuildings. Storage heaters and lone sockets converted from round pin ones.

Yellow = 20A  - as above, 15 and 20 are similar, right ?

Red 30A  - rings of sockets, cookers, anything big really,  replace with unbent paper clip.

Green 40A  - they must have a shower or a two cookers on one line. Must go in the slot near the mains switch. Replace with offcut strand from the earth core of the stranded type of ring main cable that we used before 2.5mm.

I fully agree on the pulling things but checking that the  right circuit goes dead. I watched my father blow up  the ohms range on what had been a rather nice  (and expensive) analogue meter by believing the labeling on the fuse board and not actually isolating the circuit we were fault finding. I learnt two things that day. 

1) it is really important to double check isolation, labels can be wrong, and

2) some new vocabulary for special occasions..

both lessons remain valuable.

Serge:

Never mind the labels - it looks like there should be a market for modular blanks!

   - Andy. 

there are modular blanks, for example, a schneider or a hager, but they are uncomfortable, they usually write with a pen.

Sorry - I was going off at a tangent - nothing to do with labels. I noticed the gaps at the ends of the rows of circuit breakers - in the UK they would be filled by blanking plates or modular (MCB sized) blanks that clip onto the DIN rail - leaving gaps large enough to get a finger in would be considered a serious error here.


Going back to the labels - I think your graphics would need an update for the UK - two dots within a circle looks nothing like a socket outlet to British eyes (our sockets are rectangular and have three rectangular pins). You might also have to consider other UK peculiarities like twin RCCB 'split load' layouts where some indication of which RCCB feeds which MCBs is usual (and it's never as simple as everything else on the same row).


The other issue is that often you don't know until you're on site exactly what labels you'll need - and most electricians don't carry computers & A4 printers as part of their kit - hence the popularity of portable labelling machines or marker pens.


     - Andy.

Going back to the labels - I think your graphics would need an update for the UK - two dots within a circle looks nothing like a socket outlet to British eyes (our sockets are rectangular and have three rectangular pins). You might also have to consider other UK peculiarities like twin RCCB 'split load' layouts where some indication of which RCCB feeds which MCBs is usual (and it's never as simple as everything else on the same row).

 

The service allows you to leave gaps, and outlet icons are presented in different versions.




Andy, Thank you for such a detailed explanation. For us it is very important.


In our country, many electricians assemble panels at the workplace, prepare schemes in advance, and mark the electrical panel. They usually do this on a computer.

I have long considered it to be a significant safety related omission in the UK that there is no consensus on how to number the MCBs in an MCB board.

We can put a list of circuits on the back of a door but which MCB is No. 2? Is it the 2nd one down the first column, the top of the 2nd column, the one 2nd from the main isolator?

On several large projects I used Excel to prepare a numbering scheme to apply next the MCBs and a schedule to put on the back of the door.

there is no consensus on how to number the MCBs

But other than as a means of coping with illogical N and Earth bar layouts why is there a need to number MCBs at all? Just label them with what they serve and be done with it?

   - Andy.

Firstly, forget the supposedly 'universal language' pictograms. They are confusing and meaningless on so many levels, just like IKEA furniture instructions.

Every installation is different and no one size fits all. For example,the testing which precedes a consumer unit change reveals that not all sockets labelled "Downstairs sockets" are actually that. It could be that a supply has been taken  from the circuit marked as "Down stairs sockets" to supply a shed or outbuilding. Similarly, a circuit labelled "Upstairs Lights" may not include the fact that some outside lights and attic/loft lights have also been supplied form the same circuit..

When you get to the industrial side, and 3 phase distribution board may say be labelled "Cincinnati Milling m/c" Or "Morando Vertical Boring m/c".


Simply, there si no one size fits all in this scenario and the best which can be achieved is to print one's own labels onsite using a cheap label printer.

As for GK's "Standards" No one takes any notice of those in any case. Sometimes a Sharpie pen is all you really need!

"why is there a need to number MCBs at all?"

To identify the circuit on a test sheet and to allow description long enough to be meaningful.

And I also like to state on any equipment where it needs to be isolated, not some useless "at MCB board" nonsense but "Isolate at MCB 1L1"