Meter Tails

[Jimmyb]

Did they ever use 4mm tails for fuse boards because I went to look at putting in a new fuse board and was shocked to see these, I thought maybe they could of been 6mm so got some out the van and compare and they were about 4mm but def no bigger, I disconnected the fuse board and rang the landlord to give a price for replacing them while i was there and explained i couldnt believe they had melted and would quote for csu after i replaced the tails

The board has 30 cooker, 2 rings, immersion and 2 lights, i thought id check main fuse to see what size was in and it was an 80amp, why has the meter company upgraded the meter and left it like this as the landlord said they couldnt of had a problem with it.

 

[telectrix]

because meter fitters don't do tails. " not my job mate"

 

[nickblake]

Belive it or not from the meter to the CDU is not the responcability of the DNO ive seen alsorts from the meters from 1.5mm to earth wires ,including a 5 bed house off a 2.5mm twin and earth gas cooker and no shower mind

 

[tonys]

Diversity that's why they never melted, was they an old imperial size, if so, could of took 45amp. If everyone used the max, we would be in darkness.

 

[Engineer54]

Did you manage to look at the actual conductor size ?? Most of the older tails used to be in the region of 7/044, but maybe look a lot smaller as they weren't double insulated in them there days...lol!!!

 

[Jimmyb]

They were double insulated so must of been a bit of a diy job back in the day

 

[Engineer54]

Never seen and never heard of 4mm double insulated or equivalent service tails ever being available!!!

 

[ricardo123]

Smallest I have seen so far have been 10mm tails.

 

[telectrix]

just bung new tails meter to CU

 

[fire]

if you were to take the resistance of each of the 4mm tails and it read more that 3 ohms it would never melt since you would only need a minimum of 2.875 ohms in a conductor for 80A to follow although it would get warm. not good practice and not safe but can do the job to some degree.

 

[telectrix]

dammn long tails to read over 3 ohms!!!!! 16mm gets a tad warm at 80A

 

[Deleted member 26818]

Often these sizes were used for 40A supplies.

 

[telectrix]

Often these sizes were used for 40A supplies.

with a 30A rewireable cut-out fuse, as i remember from my dad's house built 1926

 

[Deleted member 26818]

I'm not quite that old, although I do remember when we changed over to NSG.

 

[telectrix]

god, i remember that. they condemmed all our gas fires that they made us fit 5 years earlier due to the clean air act. the house was freezing after 1970