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Installation (domestic) without Service Head

Martyn
Canvassing opinion...


We have an Installation without its own service head fed from a 50s/60s ryefied/MSDB style unit.


The Ryefield/MSDB is inturn fed from a 200A Tp&n supply head belonging to DNO. No visible issues other than supply to MSDB being unsheathed.


The MSDB has no key or tool to open, has direct access to 70mm lugged cables with door closed. 


With door open for fuse access there are no barriers, all removed and lost. 


Service cables are single insulated, tails to meters insulated & sheathed direct in to this unit. 


EICR for one of the supplied flats, does it pass or fail?
  • 0
    Hmm. I wonder who would be arrested if  dangerous situation arose due to negligence, for the ice is sounding thin. It is usually the directors of the legal entity, which may be some sort of collective commonhold with each flat owner a member.

    However, even so, that commonhold association has both the rights and obligations of a separate freeholder and to be legally valid it has to be

    registered on the land registry,

    and have named points of contact, usually a chair and a secretary, but the titles may vary.

    and registration at companies house, rather like a company . (something like "scruffy street flats commonhold association")

    (even if the address companies house hold to write to  is just c/o a solicitor's office, there has to be one.)

    The detail is not your problem, but pass the electrics in the flat ( if they are OK) but a short letter needs to be forwarded to the freeholder/ commonhold association chairman or whoever. Perhaps the flat owner can take it to the next meeting.

    Mike.
  • 0
    mapj1:


    The detail is not your problem,



    but pass the electrics in the flat ( if they are OK) but a short letter needs to be forwarded to the freeholder/ commonhold association chairman or whoever. Perhaps the flat owner can take it to the next meeting.

    Mike.


    Agreed, 


    My concern was passing an installation that has C1 and C2 defects within its sole isolation.


    I have dedicated Inspection boxes on the EICR for such Items.


    A quick (and dirty) fix would be to add a Red head just prior to the meter, that way there would be the obvious demarkation for supply.  


    It fails anyway on the switch fuse for the supply to the flat, holes in it and arc shields removed etc, probably asbestos back in the day.


    Cheers


  • 0
    I'd say don't bother, pre meter is Building networks,  and adding an unexpected red head to the BN is not really help to make it any safer- it could just as easily have been sealed Henley blocks combining the meter tails, and you'd not open those. Mind you in that case the metering company pulls the DNO fuses to the whole block off to change a meter - I know as  I have a flat in just such a building (DNO  fuses, horrible mess of 35mm tails and sealed blocks to meters, and then after each meter a 63A switch fuse and a T and E lines out to each flat.) Demarcation is then the meter

    You could add a switch fuse maybe, but it will probably be the same fuse value as the box of danger and it too has the drawback of making the dangerous part no safer further if pre meter needs abstraction proofing, and you probably strictly need BNO permission to do it (if they even know).

    Mike

  • 0
    mapj1:

    I'd say don't bother, pre meter is Building networks,  and adding an unexpected red head to the BN is not really help to make it any safer- it could just as easily have been sealed Henley blocks combining the meter tails, and you'd not open those. Mind you in that case the metering company pulls the DNO fuses to the whole block off to change a meter - I know as  I have a flat in just such a building (DNO  fuses, horrible mess of 35mm tails and sealed blocks to meters, and then after each meter a 63A switch fuse and a T and E lines out to each flat.) Demarcation is then the meter

    You could add a switch fuse maybe, but it will probably be the same fuse value as the box of danger and it too has the drawback of making the dangerous part no safer further if pre meter needs abstraction proofing, and you probably strictly need BNO permission to do it (if they even know).

    Mike

     


    Someone else will be doing any remedial works tbh, just thinking out loud.


    These days you would not get a meter installed without the red head in place after the MSDB / before meter to start with, not sure how long it has been in the EDS though. 


    Last few jobs UKPN / Meter operators seem to be quoting ’the book’ at every point. 


  • 0
    Fair enough. SSE may be more relaxed, or perhaps the metering folk have given up worrying. There are certainly regional styles, even if not officially. The one I'm thinking of is late 1990s flat conversion, and no MSDB  or individual pre-meter fuses at all (to set the tone, no planning permission ever given for the flat conversions either as our solicitor found out when we bought it). It is at the base of a crumbling Victorian building, and I suspect the now defunct gas lights were a late addition, and ever since no unnecessary expense  has been entertained at any time on any part of the building fabric. The joys of a leasehold...

    Mike

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