Thanks for the advice, I'll check with building control about the electrical cert type. I'm just curious as to why a fuse would be preferable to an RCD/MCB there? What if the swa cable got damaged in some way that that live conductors were exposed and somebody touched it? I guess it's pretty unlikely that this could happen without the conductor first shorting to earth either via the earth conductor itself or the sheathing and then blowing the fuse, but still..
I was looking at the wiring that the solar panel company did and they just have the SWA going directly to an 20amp MCB in the CU. I thought they would also need an isolator switch there because they have about 10 metres of cable but there's nothing
Look up "discrimination/selectivity" with relation to fuses, MCBs etc. Look at the time/current trip curves for MCBs and various fuse types. You should then be able to work out why a fuse is being suggested as the upstream device.
That may be the case, and probably greed/profit had a fair bit to do with it too but I'm not sure how that relates to my question! As long as everything is checked, certified and signed off properly by building control it shouldn't matter who does the actual work. A spark may have a hungover 16 year old apprentice doing most of the work for him but if it's checked afterwards and he corrects any mistakes it's all good. As long as you're not going near live unprotected conductors with no RCD or current protection and know that the first point of failure in any circuit needs to be a safety device such as a fuse or a breaker rather than the cable melting then you're highly unlikely to have a C1 fault, cause a fire or die with domestic electrics as far as I can see
Just the gob?
I just had another look at it and I wasn't right on a few of the details. They've got a cable coming down from the inverter in the loft running outside down the drainpipe to an IP67 type junction box. I hadn't looked at it closely before and said it was SWA but it actually looks like it's not armoured but just has similar black insulation. Then 2.5mm t&e cable running from the junction box to the PV generation meter and then a short piece of the same black cable as comes down from the roof going from the generation meter into the CU to a 16amp MCB type B. It's a 3.9KW PV array that generates about 3KW on a sunny day. Shall I get on to the company?
I thought that may cause a bit of controversy
That's very helpful thanks, I'll take a good look at the video. Yes when I thought about how nearly impossible it would be to do that with a SWA I felt I may have answered my own question!
Sorry I really don't understand why you're on about Grenfell or the link between that and homeowner electrics!?! Obviously if all the documentation and certification gets falsified and people are given backhanders to look the other way and nothing is actually checked then you may end up with Grenfell but that bears no resemblance to this situation!? i.e a homeowner that did a basic domestic electricians course maybe 25 years ago but then went on to do a computer systems engineering degree at uni and followed that route instead who now does his home electrics but still gets it checked and certified by an electrician and everything signed off by building control... I really don't see a problem with that, you don't become an expert at something without practical experience
If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.
Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.
Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local
