Placing consumer unit?

As I understand it, part M only applies to new buildings and building undergoing a material alteration - so the only requirement is to ensure it's not worse than before (when measured against current building regs).

   - Andy.

You might want to point out to the client that a new CU - which is chock full of RCDs etc - is likely to trip a lot more often than their old one (assuming it didn't have any RCDs), and that even a fully able-bodied person might struggle to reset that tripped lighting circuit in the dark. And even if they're able bodied, they won't be forever. Or they might eventually sell the house to someone who is less able.


When I replace my CU (still a 3036, still gathering the tuits), it will be moving from my cellar to somewhere on the ground floor where I can access it from a wheelchair. I watched the gradual decline of my father, and I assume that something similar will eventually happen to me.

A lady said to me this morning “Don’t close the fuse board lid, I have to poke it with my walking stick”, which is a very common request from older customers.


The record goes to the old Midland Electricity Board contracting department who installed a fuse board a full fourteen feet (over four metres) off the floor in the billiards room of of a rather grand old house, it was one of those you just stared up at and thought “Why?” It was a BS 1361 fuse board so you could not even poke a MCB with a handy billiards cue from the rack.

Not that long ago it was quite common to see supplies and meters etc (not just for electrics) that high or , just as bad, low down in a cupboard and out of place, out of mind. Silly really but it was the norm back then.


Similarly a pull switch in a bedroom is often called a lazy switch or a "lazy betty pull switch". I have no idea who lazy betty was. People`s perception was if you made something easier you were lazy. Daft really but who thinks it`s sensible to walk acrros a bedroom to the door to turn a light on after you done that walk or fumbled with a table lamp. A pull switch over the bed or if you don`t like em, a plateswitch near the bed must be more sensible, not lazy.


People used to "set things in stone". If someone had fish on friday then they always had fish on fridays (not just the catholics), if someone always had their tea at 5:30 then it always was 5:30 not 5:00 or 6:00 and if they had sausages on a Tuesday it was always every tuesday.

I used to work with a bloke who sometimes asked "what day is it?" when you told him he would reply "Oh good, it`s xxx for tea tonight!".

I used to go home and only then find out what was for tea for me (note - Tea is what some of us name the evening meal, dinner is midday meal, unlike those posh types who calls the evening meal dinner and midday meal luncheon).


Yep folk had set ways and it must always be so