Isolator & consumer unit fitted in meter box

[matt25]

Makes me smile that the meter housing belongs to the home owner, hence if the door blows off or breaks its the home owners responsibility to replace it, probably at great expense. How the dno claim the back board only from this is beyond me, anyone know??

 

[Guest111]

Its one of those things with suppliers,they want you to allocate a place for their equipmet however you cannot put anything in the same space even though its your property,all utility companies seem to do this I think its something to do with keeping their kit seperate from everyone else,s ,probably from years ago like when they didn,t supply an earth and although they were giving you a supply you had to provide an earth to their satisfaction or you didn,t get the electric.Maybe it,s just their way of holding on to a bit of power.

 

[matt25]

"holding on to a bit of power" sounds about right. Im trying to think of other circumstances where it is the home owners obligation to protect a someone elses kit......... maybe im wrong and it doesnt have to be protected!? Theres one round the corner from me thats not had a door for ages!!

 

[Guest111]

"holding on to a bit of power" sounds about right. Im trying to think of other circumstances where it is the home owners obligation to protect a someone elses kit......... maybe im wrong and it doesnt have to be protected!? Theres one round the corner from me thats not had a door for ages!!

Yes its a classic case of we know you need it so its our way or no way.Reminds me of a place i worked at and the question arose about what would happen if we needed more power,we were told by networks that in that case they would have to install a substation,but the problem for them was it would have to be on our land and they were not happy as it would mean they would not have 24hr access due to premises being locked at night.Heres where it got interesting,when we informed them that the boss lived on site and since the sub was only feeding our plant it would not be a problem,also that any incident causing total loss of supply would require myself as works engineer to attend they asked what would happen if he was on holiday? my answer was that they could have my mobile number and that if he was away then someone else would be on site.ultimately what I think they wanted was a key to the site,a classic case of if we don,t play my way I,m taking my ball and going home.

 

[matt25]

cbw........ did the meter spin backwards on that job?

 

[cbw]

YEP!

Have a video of it for fun!!!

Will try to post it later when not working.......

 

[moggy1968]

we've done this on lots of installs. IT was cleared by the DNO on the first, after that I didn't bother. One was also for my annual inspection and didn't raise an eyebrow then either.
As is said elsweher, if your meter is in your house, what then? If it's in your garage, what then? It's no different with the meter box, it doesn't belong to the DNO so you can stick what you like in there as long as it doesn't interfere with their kit.

 

[matt25]

Cbw's photo shows an Rcd, is this as standard for the type of install?

 

[Worcester]

Yes / No / Maybe - there are extensive other threads on RCB's ... TL inverters TT / PME systems ...... :13:

 

[cbw]

With this one the AC 6mm T+E is running in wall chase in kitchen.

Needs 30ma RCD to comply with regs.

If you can get away with just a main switch and MCB this would be preferable.

 

[matt25]

If it was out the bottom of meter housing, up the gable end, into loft and into isolator, all in SWA. An RCD wouldnt really be needed would it?

 

[cbw]

No it wouldnt.

I am not too keen on cables on show, just being fussy I guess!

If the customer had let me put the cable in surface trunking I could also have ommited the RCD.

 

[matt25]

thanks, i think it would be a good idea to have a thread on RCD's as a sticky

 

[IronLiver]

We recently fitted a system with the CU + Gen meter in the meter box as it was next to the front door of the property. Running the cabling internally was not an option as the building was only 2 years old and the disruption internally would have been too great (limited access above main CU in house in airing cupboard with massive hot water cylinder sat on top of tongue and groove chip board) nowhere inconspicuous to site a sub-board in the hall or nearby.

We ran SWA from the meter box round the outside of the house and located the inverter behind the property on a north facing wall. DC cabling and 10mm G/Y run in 25mm black PVC tube up the wall to the soffit, 25mm copex through roof space to a roof vent; Tidy.

I don't have a picture of the inside of the meter cupboard after the installation, but I was really pleased how it turned out. Not sure how a smart meter would fit into the equation as I do not know what the dimensions are; I must admit that I had not thought about it at the time, but there is some clearance in there. The rotary isolator is adjacent to the inverter at the rear of the house so just gen meter and small CU in meter box along with DNOs cut out.

Monty

 

[matt25]

I thought you'd have made an effort to get the panels running level with the ridge?? JOKE! looks very neat, top job!