Low quality UK consumer units.

mapj1: 
 

But then what should we do with our existing housing stock?

Raise the ceiling to 2,4m to accommodate the CU, or more likely put it in a shed outside to go rusty.

UK building regs do not specify a ceiling height.

Mike.

The English Building Regulations did stipulate a minimum ceiling height of 7’6” this came from an old Public Health Act to provide ventilation for gas lighting, as it was generally unvented and combustion fumes built up in room to potentially lethal levels, some people did die.

This was then metricated and became 2.300 metres, however the requirement was removed from the Building Regulations because generally people don’t have gas lights anymore, but I have worked in some homes that still do!

This opened up the opportunity to create more bedrooms in lofts and cellars with what would have been unacceptably low ceilings. One student HMO comes to mind, the landlord had turned a two bedroom terraced house into a five bedroom house utilising the front room, loft and cellar as bedrooms. I cannot stand up in either the loft or cellar bedrooms and I am not very tall, I was doing a smoke alarm inspection, PAT and EICR when he was showing a group of potential tenants around and he suggested that the two shortest students may like to have one of these “bedrooms“, there’s no way I would have let my kids pay good money to live in those rooms, but they were licensed.

How ever the Council have had a crack down and upped the required standards resulting in the number of bedrooms being reduced in some HMOs and walls having to be moved to make bedrooms bigger, along with having to increase the size of communal living space, but I don’t think the council can do anything about low ceilings.

As I understand it, the standard ceiling height is 2.4 m because that is the length of a sheet of plasterboard.

Chris Pearson: 
 

As I understand it, the standard ceiling height is 2.4 m because that is the length of a sheet of plasterboard.

Generally we cut a bit off and throw it away, sorry I mean recycle it as agricultural lime.

AJJewsbury: 
 

Hager surge arrester type 215kA

Just for clarity - that's a type 2 rated at 15kA (rather than 215kA).

   - Andy.

I used Google translate with a cut and paste, my French isn't good enough to translate it.

For my French aural exam I learnt every way of saying “je ne comprend pas” it gave the teacher a laugh, in fact she laughed all through the exam, but said it wasn't enough to get a pass.

mapj1: 
 

But then what should we do with our existing housing stock?

Raise the ceiling to 2,4m to accommodate the CU, or more likely put it in a shed outside to go rusty.

UK building regs do not specify a ceiling height.

Mike.

This maybe for the next generation to come up with some novel solutions. Although an intermmediate possibility might be a  meccano type CCU kit that can be sized to any height or width to fit into a space appropriate to the structure of the building. Blank panels would be supplied for the electrician to size and fit around the CCU. This type of metalwork is not beyond the average ability of an NVQ2-3 electrician.

Legh

Actually 5.16 of ADB V2 requires a minimum height of 2m in escape routes (other than below a doorway). That effectively means a minimum ceil height of 2m in all rooms. 

By the way, the standard of workmanship in the video leaves a lot to be desired. Plastering / dry lining finish is terrible and if any stupid painter destroyed my new electrical accessories with careless paint splodges I would be none too pleased. 
Three-phase domestic is the way to go if EVs and heat pumps are to blossom. 

I bet you would not be very happy if the guys in the French SPD video blew up your coffee machine.

That coffee pot was quite an impressive video - if carefully staged. 

It may be worth noting that when something fails like that it is not always the over-voltage itself that provides the energy for the main  explosion, but rather it creates a conductive breakdown path that the  mains then pours many amps into and heats things up for quite a bit longer. - hence 3mm gaps on some mains switches - half  mm of air would do to hold off 230V, but not to stretch an established arc of a few amps to breaking point.  So really fast ADS can help.

DC or high frequency mains would be even more impressive, as the zero-crossings of the 50Hz AC do help limit the arc time - at worst it goes out at the next half cycle.

There is a parallel with striking an arc on a welder - once current is flowing the gap needed to break the current is much higher than the gap needed to prevent it starting 

I must say that we'd have had to put the device under test inside the test cage  if we did it though.

Mike.