solartist
New Member
I recently learned that UK electricians are loath to fit any piece of consumer unit furniture (an MCB, RCD/RCCB, RCBO, AFDD, SPD, or switch) unless the manufacturer has approved that specific item for the specific consumer unit in question. Apparently this is because the manufacturers would disclaim responsibility if a piece of furniture they manufactured failed in another manufacturer's CU, or vice versa.
I don't blame the electricians. I blame the manufacturers, whose policies appear to constitute a serious breach of UK and European anti-trust law. The situation defies a key aim of standardisation (DIN rail mounts, standardised unit dimensions, British Standards, etc), which is to achieve interchangeability of equivalent parts from different manufacturers. After all, a consumer unit is fundamentally just an enclosure - a box!
(If Microsoft said customers can only use Microsoft peripherals with Microsoft PCs/tablets, or their warranties would be invalid, Microsoft would be hauled before the courts. In fact, Microsoft has been hauled before several courts in several jurisdictions for similar infractions in the software domain - and the courts decided against Microsoft's attempted monopolies and in favour of consumer choice.)
I very much hope that a consumer rights organisation, or an industry body, or some other group or individual, will take this matter through the courts and end these monopolistic, anti-competitive practices within the electrical industry!
But in the meantime, I am planning a solar installation, and at some point I will need to have one or more new consumer units, together with furniture, installed/commissioned by a licensed electrician.
I want to pick a brand that will give me a wide choice of components to protect not just against "traditional" faults (the kinds associated with resistive loads), but also from "modern" electrical faults for which protection is now available:
AFAICT, this means I will need:
Looking around, I haven't yet found any manufacturers offering a consumer unit series with all the above items of furniture available for it. For instance, the Electrium Crabtree Starbreaker series (which otherwise seems well-designed for safety) doesn't appear to offer RCBOs with type B RCDs. At least, I haven't found any.
Can anyone here recommend one or several brands that offer all the above components, in a single product range (so that licensed electricians would not balk at using them), at reasonable prices? Thanks in advance!
I don't blame the electricians. I blame the manufacturers, whose policies appear to constitute a serious breach of UK and European anti-trust law. The situation defies a key aim of standardisation (DIN rail mounts, standardised unit dimensions, British Standards, etc), which is to achieve interchangeability of equivalent parts from different manufacturers. After all, a consumer unit is fundamentally just an enclosure - a box!
(If Microsoft said customers can only use Microsoft peripherals with Microsoft PCs/tablets, or their warranties would be invalid, Microsoft would be hauled before the courts. In fact, Microsoft has been hauled before several courts in several jurisdictions for similar infractions in the software domain - and the courts decided against Microsoft's attempted monopolies and in favour of consumer choice.)
I very much hope that a consumer rights organisation, or an industry body, or some other group or individual, will take this matter through the courts and end these monopolistic, anti-competitive practices within the electrical industry!
But in the meantime, I am planning a solar installation, and at some point I will need to have one or more new consumer units, together with furniture, installed/commissioned by a licensed electrician.
I want to pick a brand that will give me a wide choice of components to protect not just against "traditional" faults (the kinds associated with resistive loads), but also from "modern" electrical faults for which protection is now available:
- AC faults up to at least 1kHz from inverter-driven heat-pump motors
- smooth DC current leaks
- surges (transient over-voltages) that could damage sensitive electronics
- series arcing in radial circuits (technically this is not a "modern" fault, but only in recent years have AFDDs become available to protect against it).
AFAICT, this means I will need:
- Type B RCDs/RCCDs (or better still, affordable RCBOs incorporating type B RCDs/RCCDs)
- AFDDs
- SPDs
Looking around, I haven't yet found any manufacturers offering a consumer unit series with all the above items of furniture available for it. For instance, the Electrium Crabtree Starbreaker series (which otherwise seems well-designed for safety) doesn't appear to offer RCBOs with type B RCDs. At least, I haven't found any.
Can anyone here recommend one or several brands that offer all the above components, in a single product range (so that licensed electricians would not balk at using them), at reasonable prices? Thanks in advance!
Last edited:
My bad... was looking at b curve trigger, not type b