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Over head power feeds

Kelly Marie Angel

Today I found an old iet wiring guide from 1948 I've had it years but it was hidden away I've just found it again anyway there's a bit in it about how AC feeds to houses it shows fuses in live and neutral near where the drop wire joins the main distribution pole. My old house was built in 48 and the main fuse for the live pole was in the meter cupboard  were the pole top fuses instead of or as well as the main fuse in the house? Seems an odd idea a the electricity board man would need to climb the pole if it blew. Although I realise  that fuses of that size wouldn't now often

  • Fuses at the tops of poles (or indeed part way up) are very much still a thing in overhead lines, even brand new ABC ones going in right now . Not necessarily always one fuse per house mind, but can also be a handy way of isolating small groups of houses, such as a small close or similar. Sometimes just one per phase beneath a small pole-pig transformer.  

    https://www.wt-henley.com/pdf/14688_pole_mounted_cutouts_400a.pdf

    Mike,

  • were the pole top fuses instead of or as well as the main fuse in the house?

    I would have guessed as well as rather than instead of - not least as the  inside ones would have made a useful point for isolation for things like changing the meter.

    I suspect the pole fuses would have been a size or two larger than the internal ones - to provide some discrimination - but also to protect the service cable - they probably weren't that blaze as we are these days in hoping the substation fuse would protected the 60A of thinner cable to the house.

    N fusing was the norm on single phase circuits in those days (how else did you protect N conductors on a small circuit from faults from L from a larger circuit - especially as in those days a whole lot of cotton covered singles run together under timber capping was quite normal). Only in 3-phase circuits where an open N could result in massive overvoltages to part of the circuit was N fusing omitted.

      - Andy.

  • Thanks for the replies its interesting to see how much things have changed sometimes not for the better always. 

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