New Digital Meters

[m4tty]

Hi,

Just had my old 'spinning disk' meter changed as it came to the end of its life to a new digital meter.

Whilst the meter guy was here I asked if the new meter would register if the main fuse was pulled and he said 'yes'. I asked what could I do if I wanted to change the board so he kindly left a connector block which he was going to remove and said to me to 'pull the tails' out of it and reconnect new tails into it when board fitted.

That means doing it live doesnt it. This aint allowed technically is it so what would be the best way of doing it. 1000V insulated rubber jubbers? or just be very careful?

Cheers

BTW Hard Hat applied if this is a no no, but im not going to pay the supplier to come round and take mainfuse out and reseal when finished.

 

[ProDave]

This comes up regularly.

Most of us pull the main fuse to isolate safely (the seals had been removed by someone else before me, honest guv )

You CAN reasonably safely remove outgoing tails from a henley block live, and replace them after the CU change, providing you use insulated tools. Often Henley blocks use an allen key rather than a screw, so you need an insulated one if that's the case.

But I still prefer to pull the fuse. Note it's not always necessary to cut the seal. Very often I find the fuse only secured by one of it's two seals, with enough slack to pull it to break the circuit, and then insert an insulated screwdriver behind the fuse carrier to ensure it does not go back in while working on the circuit, though I doubt that is really an approved method.

Have a look at your new electronic meter. a lot of them actually provide an isolator built in so you can disconnect the output without breaking any seals. Those are usually only sealed on the input connections, not the output, or even if the output side is sealed, it's a separate seal to the input side, so in that case just cut the output side seal.

Personally I would not pay the DNO to come and pull the fuse, but that's your call. I usually do phone them to report a "missing seal" after the CU change and have never encountered any issues or backlash from doing that (except N Power that just ignore you or don't know what you are talking about)

 

[Chris_81]

Drop me a pm when you want it resealing and I'll pop round and do it for you.

Is it just a standard single rate digital meter you've got? If it is then they don't register anything when the fuse is pulled. just go off and come back on again!

 

[Andy™]

Whilst the meter guy was here I asked if the new meter would register if the main fuse was pulled and he said 'yes'.

i dont think they do, but either way, could be a 'power failure'

 

[Chris_81]

[quote name='Andy

 

[300TDI]

I find that when the distributor upgrades the meter to a digital one they "sometimes" put a double pole main switch in the meters tails between the meter and consumer unit, i have seen this quite a lot

Also i find that if the power goes off, the meter simply goes off then comes back on once the power is restored, and i doubt if anyone would have any way of finding out, so i wouldnt lose any sleep over it