Hi
As part of a loft conversion to my 2 (now 3) floor flat in a Victorian Terraced house I have added about a dozen 2-gang sockets, a shaving socket, and about 16 downlights to my new floor, plus swapping four pendant lights for 16 downlights in the floor below.
An electrician was installing a new consumer unit today and then I got a call from the head builder who is not onsite. He told me the electrician is concerned that the main service feed coming into the fuse/meter is only 10mm across. The electrician has apparently wired and tested everything (even though he's left the ground floor lights not working) but says we can't turn on the power in the loft as he is not confident the consumer unit will not burn out or the RCDs will be constantly tripping as the mains service cable is too thin.
The head builder told me I will probably have to upgrade my supply. He started advising me to call The National Grid (I think he means UK power networks).
I checked the main feed wire and by my measurements it looks around 12mm across. My builder was saying it should be more like 35 mm across and they'd never seen this before.
I apologise for the lack of detail but that's literally all the information I have aside from two photos of the set-up which are attached.
The reason I am posting is this all seems very light on detail. For instance I would expect a bit more calculation and maybe some figures to justify why we need to shell out many thousands potentially to upgrade the supply. The same amount of people will be living in the house, there are just likely to be a few more lights on and maybe an extra device plugged in.
Could anyone offer any advice about this? Should I just accept it, should I ask UK Power Networks about it, or should I be asking for more detail about how he came to this conclusion (and if so, what?)? Do the photos suggest what we have is obviously wrong? Any pointers would be much appreciated
cheers,
Pariah66
As part of a loft conversion to my 2 (now 3) floor flat in a Victorian Terraced house I have added about a dozen 2-gang sockets, a shaving socket, and about 16 downlights to my new floor, plus swapping four pendant lights for 16 downlights in the floor below.
An electrician was installing a new consumer unit today and then I got a call from the head builder who is not onsite. He told me the electrician is concerned that the main service feed coming into the fuse/meter is only 10mm across. The electrician has apparently wired and tested everything (even though he's left the ground floor lights not working) but says we can't turn on the power in the loft as he is not confident the consumer unit will not burn out or the RCDs will be constantly tripping as the mains service cable is too thin.
The head builder told me I will probably have to upgrade my supply. He started advising me to call The National Grid (I think he means UK power networks).
I checked the main feed wire and by my measurements it looks around 12mm across. My builder was saying it should be more like 35 mm across and they'd never seen this before.
I apologise for the lack of detail but that's literally all the information I have aside from two photos of the set-up which are attached.
The reason I am posting is this all seems very light on detail. For instance I would expect a bit more calculation and maybe some figures to justify why we need to shell out many thousands potentially to upgrade the supply. The same amount of people will be living in the house, there are just likely to be a few more lights on and maybe an extra device plugged in.
Could anyone offer any advice about this? Should I just accept it, should I ask UK Power Networks about it, or should I be asking for more detail about how he came to this conclusion (and if so, what?)? Do the photos suggest what we have is obviously wrong? Any pointers would be much appreciated
cheers,
Pariah66
