Originally posted by: Polyamide66
it States in this new ruling: it has to be a non combustible material ie: metal.
It does not just mean it has to be metal.
Just look up polyamide 66 statistics.
All well branded electrical manufacturers use this material. Even in the oil & Gas market place.
It's not the consumer unit it's the idiot installing it.
I find it rather interesting that of all of the potential contributing factors highlighted in the report, the ONLY one that the industry does not want to either address or investigate is the competence of those actually INSTALLING the consumer units.
Cage clamp terminals ARE unsuitable for consumer units (especially for terminating meter tails) but their use precedes the increase in mains distribution fire statistics by many years.
It has been mentioned that the installation of meters may be a factor : I have personally seen evidence of loosened consumer unit tails resulting from upstream alterations MANY times, sometimes resulting in the tails being so loose in the incoming device that they could be lifted out with the tip of one finger.
BUT I have seen far more similar problems where no upstream work has been carried out.
I have lost count of the number of times where I have been called out to "showers turning off after a couple of minutes" or " the shower keeps going hot and cold", only to find :
A shower pull-switch terminated by (presumeably) a five year old.
Alterations in the consumers mains distribution equipment where clearly even consultation with a five year old was not carried out.
On some occassions the screws in the cage clamp terminals were found to be still fully retracted, one others they merely loose to the point of requiring 3 or 4 turns to properly tighten them.
Whilst it is blatently obvious that the quality of build and basic design of modern consumer units is degenerating, this has been far outstripped by the plummeting levels of competence of the individuals ACTUALLY INSTALLING THEM.
It is totally pointless requiring the installer the comply with both the manufacturers instructions and BS7671 when thousands are fitted by individuals that posses neither the knowledge or practical skills to do so.
The premise that any individual is competent merely because either they or a supervisor is assessed by a Scheme Operator is bordering on surreal as thousands of Scheme "annual assessments" have never taken place. Even after setting entry standards to a meaningless level many members have gained entry "on the nod" for commercial reasons and are then granted "grandfather rights" without any sound basis apart from revenue generation.
The losers in all of this are the paying public and the trade, but they have little or no say as the truth is both unpalatable and disturbing.
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B. Eng (Hons) MIET