New fuseboard mounted on case of old metal clad board

[Dazza1976]

Hi all,

If replacing an old metal clad consumer unit with a new Plastic one, where the metal conduit is used as the CPC throughout the installation, is it acceptable to mount the new unit directly over the case of the old unit, linking the two with a length of 16mm earth, in order to keep the earth continuity ??

A friend of mine whos company has a contract with the council, says they always do it this way, because it can sometimes be a right pain and fairly time consuming disconnecting the conduit from the old consumer unit and reconnecting to a new metal clad one.

Has anyone else ever done it this way ?

 

[Dazza1976]

Total agreement with you Tony if the board is flush as both of us suggest then yes you can get away fitting a surface mounted board over it.

If it's not a flush board again agree entirely anything other than removing it would be a total lash up.

Thought i would just stick up for my friend here, as he is a very conciensious with what he does, and he certainly isnt lazy or semi - skilled.
He does it this way purely under the direction of the company he works for. The firm recently got the contract to do the maintenance and installations for the Elmbridge housing trust, they got the contract by going in very cheap and undercutting the previous firm, and have quoted ridiculously low prices like - £120 to install a new kitchen ring, £120 for a consumer unit change, £20 to change a socket e.t.c, im assuming that after a while they will increases these prices.
As a result of that my friend is instructed to do things as quickly and cheaply as possible, as long as it is safe and meets the regs, hence the reason he replaces metal clad units in that way, it might look a bit unsightly, but in council/housing trust places, that doesnt really seem to be an issue, like the way they use trunking everywhere, surfaces mount boxes and never chase anything out.

 

[Engineer54]

Thought i would just stick up for my friend here, as he is a very conciensious with what he does, and he certainly isnt lazy or semi - skilled.
He does it this way purely under the direction of the company he works for. The firm recently got the contract to do the maintenance and installations for the Elmbridge housing trust, they got the contract by going in very cheap and undercutting the previous firm, and have quoted ridiculously low prices like - £120 to install a new kitchen ring, £120 for a consumer unit change, £20 to change a socket e.t.c, im assuming that after a while they will increases these prices.
As a result of that my friend is instructed to do things as quickly and cheaply as possible, as long as it is safe and meets the regs, hence the reason he replaces metal clad units in that way, it might look a bit unsightly, but in council/housing trust places, that doesnt really seem to be an issue, like the way they use trunking everywhere, surfaces mount boxes and never chase anything out.

Please confirm one way or the other, ....Are these existing old CUs you mentioned, Surface mounted or Flush mounted??

 

[malcolmsanford]

Thought i would just stick up for my friend here, as he is a very conciensious with what he does, and he certainly isnt lazy or semi - skilled.
He does it this way purely under the direction of the company he works for. The firm recently got the contract to do the maintenance and installations for the Elmbridge housing trust, they got the contract by going in very cheap and undercutting the previous firm, and have quoted ridiculously low prices like - £120 to install a new kitchen ring, £120 for a consumer unit change, £20 to change a socket e.t.c, im assuming that after a while they will increases these prices.
As a result of that my friend is instructed to do things as quickly and cheaply as possible, as long as it is safe and meets the regs, hence the reason he replaces metal clad units in that way, it might look a bit unsightly, but in council/housing trust places, that doesnt really seem to be an issue, like the way they use trunking everywhere, surfaces mount boxes and never chase anything out.

Fully appreciate where your coming from Dazza and applaud you for standing in a mates corner. Of course in todays market everyone is looking for cheap but cheap should never equate to bad.

I think if those boards are surface mounted then by just sticking a new board on top would IMO contravene regulation 134.1.1 and no amount of argument on safety would deter me from thinking that.

You do indeed in this world get what you pay for and if your mates company propose this, and the housing trust accept this then as long as it's safe then it will do. This is indeed sad times we are living in.

 

[tonys]

He does it this way purely under the direction of the company he works for

I work under the guidance of BS7671, and if whoever I work for does not like me working this way, I don't work for them, quote simple really.

 

[oldtimer]

Best to site the new DB adjacent to the old DB and then utilise the old DB as a junction box I have seen a new DB mounted on an old one the only problem is access to the wiring plus it does not look nice at all