17th edition consumer with non rcd mcbs seen today

[eeb1933]

hi all

been to look at a job tonight change light fittings in an old cottage, . looked around and looked at the consumer unit in the porch and its an mk with one side rcd and mcb other side. looked at the installation date august 2010? he then replied the roof leaked in porch into old rewireable board and when the electrician put the new board in the lights had a low insulation reading so it would trip rcd and owner didnt want boards up to find faults as the electrician had looked at lights and switchs and said junction boxes must be under floorboards. looked at certs niceic and he put in notes customer refused investigation fault finding into light circuits 1 and 2 agreed to connect as 16th edition . can you do this?

insulation was low .11 between pn and earth.

 

[Zeespark]

Depends on the install condition of the non RCD circuits in terms of construction. Though the homeowner should have known better.

AndyGuinness

 

[Doc Hudson]

I wonder if he actually tried any light circuit on an RCD? as 0.11Mohm is still 110,000ohms which is far less than 30ma? The question now is, do you change your light fittings? and should you put RCD on it?

Doc H.

 

[Andy™]

not ideal, but if the CU was changed due to damage (which it was byt he sounds of it), then there wasnt much else that could be done

 

[ProDave]

Yes that's a dilemma we must all encounter. When you get a customer that wants some work done but only the bare minimum.

You know the work will make the installation safer (new CU in this case) but you can't do it because the regs say it's all or nothing.

And you know if you walk away, he will just keep asking other electricians until he finds someone willing to do it.

 

[kerching]

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make/force/insistthat a customer has work done... :coat

 

[Robin Spark]

Perhaps rcbo's for lights would have been a good choice and you can still do this if its a split load. At least then any fault will only isolate one cct.

 

[batty]

As Robin says RCBO's would be the way forward. I personally would have used RCBO board anyway.

 

[sellers]

Just a situation where common sense prevails. Customer wants bare minimum. Board must be chaged due to damage. You could argue that he could have re fit a fully functional old re-wirable board as a replacement. In reality a dual RCD board may have been more sensble with a departure for IR readings.