Parts of an Electrical Installation
Your electrical installation is made up of various clever devices which keep you safely powered. This article will briefly go over some of the common ones explaining what they do and why we use them. The first area we’ll look at is the incoming supply. This will normally arrive at the properly in a meter cupboard outside your property. Here we have the supply cable connected to a ‘main cutout’ fuse. This is fuse protects the incoming supply from being overloaded and is the property of the Distribution Network Operator and maintained by them. After this we have the electricity meter which counts how much electricity you use, older ones will be large analogue ones or newer ones like the below version have digital screens. Up to this point these pieces of equipment are property of the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) and they’re responsible for keeping them in good working order. In some installations like the one below an isolator might be fitted.
After the meter or isolator the meter tails will connect this part to the Consumer Unit (often referred to as the Fuse Box) often going through the wall and into the house. These large cables will enter the Consumer Unit and go through a few clever devices before feeding all of your circuits. Inside here we have an isolator, which cuts off the power for the whole installation. Next is an often an Residual Current Device (RCD) which detects current leakage and cuts the supply if there’s a fault. After this we have a Miniature Circuit Breaker (MCB) which detects short circuit faults and overload faults, protecting the cable from being overloaded. In newer Consumer Units these will be combined into one clever device now as the picture below shows. This has the advantage of only turning off one circuit if there’s a fault. Hiding on the end of the row below we have a bright orange Surge Protection Device. This protects the whole installation against power surges from the incoming supply.
If you’re worried about a particular part of your electrical installation or need some helpo then give us a shout, advice is always free!