Help! Faulty installation of fuse board!

[Lauren614]

Hello,

Hoping someone one will be able to help me with some advice! I live in a new build house that is only 2.5 years old and recently lost power to upstairs. Local electrician diagnosed the issue as faulty installation of the fuse board (clamp missing from the bus bar) which caused it to heat up and melt. He said it was dangerous and could have caused a fire. Thinking of going to the developer (Taylor wimpey) to seek reimbursement for the cost of fixing the problem but just want to check whether it is really possible for faulty installation to manifest like this over 2 years after the installation? Just anticipating their unhelpful response! Thanks in advance! 

 

[Andy™]

common occurance. should have been noticed when installed. its unlikely to have caused a fire, but it could have done so. sometimes they work for years slowly heating up and making a poorer connection until they fail

id be going back to whoever done it

 

[Sharpend]

Ask the electrician to provide you with a written report stating his findings then approach TW for a suitable resolve. 

 

[Tony S]

If you look at this in a pragmatic manner it would involve a lot less expense if you simply pay for the repairs. A legal fight with TW will run up costs far above that of the repair. If you win you may get costs awarded by a court but think of the stress on your family.

 

[Sharpend]

I’m not sure it’s got that far at the moment but point taken.  

 

[Geoff1946]

As a compromise, fix it, (you don't actually say whether you have or not though I;m guessing you have), get together all the evidence you have and approach the developer for an ex-gratia payment. Photos of the defective and damaged assembly would be reallly good.  Hint at, or even activate, small claims court action.

 

[Evans Electric]

I tend to agree with Tony S  . 

Not sure of the EXACT nature of the fault  but the word clamp makes me think  the Main Switch ..an RCD ..or  an MCB  wasn't  clamped properly .

The repair is something like a new Main Switch  and  replace the busbar ...it'll be a modern board so no problem  and not expensive  either .

Have to say  a consumer unit shouldn't show faults like that after only 2 yrs  but it did .     Presumably TW   used a Part P registered electrician , who notified the job , thus there is a 6 year  warranty  on the job  , responsibility of the original installer .    So if you want to go that road  , there should be no costs to you .    

 

[Andy™]

Have to say  a consumer unit shouldn't show faults like that after only 2 yrs  but it did .     Presumably TW   used a Part P registered electrician , who notified the job , thus there is a 6 year  warranty  on the job  , responsibility of the original installer .    So if you want to go that road  , there should be no costs to you .    

id assume the house (being a new build) would have required planning permission. its possible that the electrics were done on that and may not have been notified through a scam?

 

[Evans Electric]

Never heard of that  Andy . 

 

[Andy™]

Never heard of that  Andy . 

done it before. house has work being done requiring planning permission. give EIC to LABC, they sign off the house

 

[Sharpend]

All new builds for large developers are notified under Part p. 

 

[Evans Electric]

There should be a 6 year warranty then ,  that rests with the installer ..     never heard of one being invoked though .          

 

[Andy™]

There should be a 6 year warranty then ,  that rests with the installer ..     never heard of one being invoked though .          

im pretty sure the scams will do everything they can not to pay out. insurance was invalid because it was notified on a sunday etc

 

[Sharpend]

Whilst they may try to dodge doesn’t mean they can. Alternatively the new build should be covered by the 10yr guarantee provided by the builders warranty under NHBC. 

So many avenues to take before any legal necessity. 

 

[Phoenix]

done it before. house has work being done requiring planning permission. give EIC to LABC, they sign off the house

Not planning permission, but requiring building regs sign off for other aspects, planning permission is a separate beast from building regs, although most sizeable projects will require both, although its possible to have only one required.

While such an arrangement is of course possible, it doesn't tend to happen often AFAIK, if the electrical contractor is registered with a scheme, rightly or wrongly it is easier for everyone involved the electrical to be notified through the scheme even though there should be no need for the additional expense for an extra notification charge when LABC is already involved. For smaller projects and where the electrical contractor isn't signed up to a scheme there may be more to gain from pushing LABC to do what they should do anyway.....

 

[ProDave]

My guess is one of the busbar fingers missed the cage clamp.  A fault I am sure all of us have seen.

I have said it before, WHY is it not mandated that the cage clamp design incorporates a shield so that cannot possibly happen?  Mandating engineering changes like that would do a LOT more for safety than just putting it all in a tin box.

I have even seen some makes of mcb that have such a sheild on the output terminal (where it would be bloody obvious if the wire had missed the cage clamp) but not on the busbar side where it is much harder to tell.

Just get it fixed and move on.  I have hears lots of stories of people battling for years to get genuine construction faults with a new house put right, a 10 year warranty is mostly a worthless bit of paper. 

 

[phil d]

I hope you have photo's of the problem, these will go a long way to proving what has gone wrong, then again you need to know if there is anything written into the warranty that could give the original installer any "wiggle room".

I worked for one company as a QS, they were very dodgy indeed, in the small print they had it written that for the duration of the warranty, any work on the electrics, such as swapping light fittings etc had to be done by one of their electricians, and their charges were about double what any other company charged! They said it was to protect the installation from dodgy work done by diy'ers etc, in reality, it was an excuse to rip people off. I parted company with them over a couple of things, one was that people paid £50 a year for a maintenance plan on their alarm systems, I was in charge of doing the annual services, and it was explained to me that at each service visit I was expected to "find" a defective component, the replacement of which would be chargeable! The costs varied from £30 for a battery replacement, £50 to replace a PIR, and £100 to replace a bell box. Now fair enough if a component genuinely needs replacing then so be it, but I wasn't going to replace parts that were not faulty.

The second issue involved the filling in of completion certs, to do a proper job used to take me half a day, in other words, 2 newbuilds per day were being signed off, I was informed that this wasn't enough, "our lads wired them so you know they are right" moaned the boss. A couple of days later while doing tests on one of the newbuilds, I discovered a phase earth reversal on a socket! So much for the jobs being done properly.

Anyway, the upshot was that I was told to test say 1 in 4 and then come back to the office and do the paperwork for 4 houses, just alter the figures slightly. If you had a loop value on the measured one of say 0.35, then put that on one sheet, then put 0.34 on another, 0.36 on another, and 0.38 on the last one. Same with IR values, just alter then by anything between 10 and 100 ohms. "that's how you do it" explained the boss. Well, that may have been his way, it certainly wasn't mine, I left

 

[phil d]

My guess is one of the busbar fingers missed the cage clamp.  A fault I am sure all of us have seen.

I have said it before, WHY is it not mandated that the cage clamp design incorporates a shield so that cannot possibly happen?  Mandating engineering changes like that would do a LOT more for safety than just putting it all in a tin box.

I have even seen some makes of mcb that have such a sheild on the output terminal (where it would be bloody obvious if the wire had missed the cage clamp) but not on the busbar side where it is much harder to tell.

Just get it fixed and move on.  I have hears lots of stories of people battling for years to get genuine construction faults with a new house put right, a 10 year warranty is mostly a worthless bit of paper. 

Couldn't agree more, you have a busbar with say 6 mcb's on it, once they are sat on the din rail and you start tightening them up it can be hard to see if you have missed one, i.e it's gone the wrong side of the clamp. The Crabtree one is pretty good, the MCB plugs into the busbar so it has to make contact, at least it eliminates one potential point of failure.

 

[Sharpend]

Sadly Dave your approach is largely adopted and quite often the least stressful for the layman, however this doesn’t make it right. It’s a sorry state of affairs when poor workmanship, product or service is not actually corrected either directly or through support of a authoritative body, it merely grows sloppiness and yet today I read that a rapist has been granted permission by the authorities to see the baby of his victim because he has human rights?? The mind boggles, a crime is committed yet the perpetrator is supported yet sloppy standards that could potentially cause life changing circumstances goes unaddressed? 

No wonder we are in such a bloody mess, we need to stop measuring the circumstance and treat all equally. 

 

[Lauren614]

Thank you everyone for your answers. I do have photos and a written report from the electrician who fixed it so I think I will go to TW to seek reimbursement. I’m less bothered by the money, it’s more about the principle! I was mainly just wanting a few other opinions on whether it is possible for a fault like this to manifest after 2+ years of being fine. You’ve been very helpful, thanks again!