The fuse board (or consumer unit as it should be known) is the heart of the electrical installation in your house. It should be neat and tidy inside and carefully labelled, with no easy means of accessing the power cables.

There must be labels to tell you what the various switches are for and more to warn of high voltage and when it should be tested. Look at the picture to see how neat it looks when installed properly.

There are a lot of old style consumer units in use still. In good condition they are capable of carrying out their function for many years but, with the increased emphasis on safety and the difficulty in finding and fitting the necessary upgrade parts, it is often cheaper and easier to replace the consumer unit with a new model. Carefully chosen this will enable the installation to grow and change without further costly expense.

Old style consumer units. Is this what yours look like?

A 17th edition consumer unit. No more fuse wire! Switches that are easy to reset! RCD protection and room for more circuits in the future! Perfect ....

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