Best Fuseboard

the term was introduced when these new-fangled things went on the market, which replaced bothg the cast-iron Main Switch and the polished mahogany fuse-box with a single thing.
 
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I've never liked the term consumer unit anyway. Why adopt a rather vague term which doesn't really describe what the article is in place of a more precise term which does?
Jolly good question! Does anyone know who introduced the phrase? Was it the regs (as I said, it's certainly 'defined' in the 17th), the manufacturer's of the articles in question, or who?

The same goes for residual-current device in place of residual-current circuit-breaker.
I couldn't agree more (and note that we don't have "RCDOs"!), and there are countless others. Where on earth did 'plug top' (which fortunately seems to be dying) come from, for example?

Kind Regards, John.
 
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Is it a misuse?
I would certainly say so. An electrical 'spur' (fused or unfused), in the sense of a small branch (or 'protrusion) off another circuit, is fully consistent with the meaning of the word in many other fields (railways, roads, mountains, trees, bones etc. etc.). So that's what a spur (or a fused spur) is. There is no real sense I can see in which the word can relate to a connection unit - and spurs obviously do not inevitably originate from FCUs, and nor are FCUs necessarily associated with spurs.

If one were going to call an FCU a 'fused spur', on the grounds that it could be the origin of a fused spur circuit, one might as well call a JB an 'unfused spur', for the corresponding reason.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Kind Regards, John.
 
Does anyone know who introduced the phrase? Was it the regs (as I said, it's certainly 'defined' in the 17th), the manufacturer's of the articles in question, or who?

As JohnD said, it has its origins at the time when units with a combined main switch with half a dozen fuseways of the basic layout of today started to take the place of multiple units each with typically just one or two fuses. I don't have a copy of the earlier Regs. book from when these first appeared, however the 13th edition (1955) makes reference to the "consumer's supply control unit" as defined by B.S. 1454. It's probably then a natural progression that this got shortened to "consumer unit," but unfortunate that it lost much of its descriptive nature in the process, making the term rather meaningless to the layman.

I would certainly say so. An electrical 'spur' (fused or unfused), in the sense of a small branch (or 'protrusion) off another circuit, is fully consistent with the meaning of the word in many other fields (railways, roads, mountains, trees, bones etc. etc.).

And fully consistent with the definition which has been used by the Wiring Regs. for many years. However, there are those who think that "fused spur" means only an FCU:

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