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New Consumer Unit in the Clouds.

Zoomup
I recently did some work in a man's garage. He had had a new consumer unit fitted about two years ago. He is not able to use steps as he is overweight and unsteady on his feet. A local N.I.C.E.I.C electrician installed the lovely new M.K. consumer unit. Unfortunately it is 10 feet above the floor and needs steps to access it. What was the contractor thinking about when he installed it?



Z.
  • 0
    Zoomup:

    Unfortunately it is 10 feet above the floor and needs steps to access it. What was the contractor thinking about when he installed it?


    Dinner? His girlfriend/boyfriend? 


    Any road, perhaps the fat bloke should get a scissor lift?


    P.S. "man's garage" - do girls have them?


  • 0
    I did an EICR on a farm house and one of the issues was a CU in a tatty wooden cupboard outside. The firm that did the remedials put the new CU next to the floor in a first floor bedroom. They also flooded the house but I don't think that contravenes any building regs.


    There are a lot of people out there who don't care


  • 0
    Chris Pearson:
    Zoomup:

    Unfortunately it is 10 feet above the floor and needs steps to access it. What was the contractor thinking about when he installed it?


    Dinner? His girlfriend/boyfriend? 


    Any road, perhaps the fat bloke should get a scissor lift?


    P.S. "man's garage" - do girls have them?




    Well this girl doesn't not even got a car


  • 0
    Well in the days when we had fuses rather than MCBs or RCDs, they never blew anyway, and literally lasted decades between being looked at. I think a lot of people have not realised this has changed, with a need to trip RCDs every 6 months or whatever.

    In the mean time, there are various things that are a bit better than steps for getting wobblier folk up into the air (examples)




    I have no connection with this outfit, other than as a customer - There is customised something from the same stable over the back door steps at my (aged) parents house to allow a safer exit routefrom the house.


    Mike

  • 0
    "New Builds" (say done during the last 30 or 40 years or so) contain many consumer units in totally daft places with no respect for the H & S of the user. I stopped being amazed a long time ago.


    Can we make it more non-user-friendly? Yes. Oh good
  • 0
    ebee:

    "New Builds" (say done during the last 30 or 40 years or so) contain many consumer units in totally daft places with no respect for the H & S of the user. I stopped being amazed a long time ago.


    Can we make it more non-user-friendly? Yes. Oh good


    Yes, new houses with the high level consumer unit over the W.C. bowl in a small cupboard by the front door,  where it is just about possible to site a pair of steps there to work on the consumer unit. Wheel chair access? You've got to be joking.


    Z.


  • 0
     


    P.S. "man's garage" - do girls have them?



    In the voice of the Churchill Insurance dog.


    "Oh, yes".


    Z.


  • 0
    The record goes to the fuse board which was fourteen feet off the floor installed by MEB Contracting in the billiards room of a Victorian house, the little old lady who lived there kept a twelve foot high pair of wooden steps in a cupboard.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    there are various things that are a bit better than steps for getting wobblier folk up into the air


    In that image, the gap between rails looks greater than 100 mm. Somewhere in the far reaches of the back of my mind, I'm fairly sure that this is not allowed, presumably by a building code. Unless this only applies the fixed "stairs" rather than portable ones. This image appears to look as if it has been designed to be permanent, but claims "portable" exemption!


    I believe this also applies to the missing risers.


    Regards


    BOD
  • 0
    That may be true,

    They are sold for use with static caravans to which it seems no building regs and very little planning control applies. And in our case they are semi portable, in that when my folk no longer live there, and the house is to be sold, in the same way my son and I put them in,i.e.  with a good heave ho, they can be removed again, they just sit on the ground and the jacklegs screw in and out to minimise instability ?. 

    They may well not meet any particular standard, but they do work for the case in question of 'wobbly old folk' - which is a common problem. I'm sure there is no CE marking of the steels either - that  sort of thing only gets observed  by large outfits that can afford to have someone full time reading standards that cost more to buy than the sale price of the product, and not always then.


    M.

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