Change Consumer Unit

[steelman99]

Im an industrial sparkey and have been for many years , so no comments about qualified persons please - ive had supposedly quailified people in to do work before and had to pull them up on what they were doing

Ive presently got a 16 way MK sentry consumer unit , which was put in when my mate and I reqired the house ( he was qualified to do the work at the time) - the present consumer unit is full and we are needing to add extra circuits for car charger and solar batterys , and the wife wants a studio down the garden which I want to run a seperate feed from the consumer unit. Problem im having is the MK sentry consumer unit appears of of been discontinued , and I cant find one big enough anywhere if someone has one stock

Im considering one of the hagar or fusebox 2 row consumer units which look like they can got upto 28 way or even bigger , but it seems a waste of all the perfectly good MK MCBs & RCBOs that i have already - anyone know of a consumer unit that they will fit other than a MK one?

I know at work we used to MCBs fit into diffrent boards , but industrial board functunality was more important than looking good and you did what you could at 3am

 

[bernardgreen]

Have you considered adding a second CU to supply the new loads. No changes to the wiring to the existing CU

A pair of Henley blocks would be needed to split the meter tails to the two consumer units.

 

[ericmark]

Look at the EV charging regulations first, like you I was industrial, but it does seem there is a problem in that they can't share RCD's etc, so may be forced to have second CU. So sort out what is required for that first.

 

[Taylortwocities]

anyone know of a consumer unit that they will fit other than a MK one?

Assembly type testing and certification is done with a single manufacturer's products being in the box.
So, MK box, MK devices. Get yourself a compliant MK box. They do a 21-way jobby

https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/4967156-21-way-100a-isolator-incomer-metal-clad-consumer-unit-with-type-2-spd?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA6aW6BhBqEiwA6KzDc_tWP13lTbPHJ_2u4RrTOLwdwwDNcb-4BoH7gt-TWSWbYGvGuZ8WhxoCKOUQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

But before you start, decide how you will go about getting notification done.
New CU is notifiable works. You'd need to persue youer local authority that you have the competence, calibrated test equipment etc to carry this work out.

 

[flameport]

it seems a waste of all the perfectly good MK MCBs & RCBOs that i have already

Unless those are very recent, it's highly likely that those RCBOs are all obsolete Type AC.
As virtually all circuits in domestic require RCD protection, the MCBs won't be of much use either.

MK never made their own consumer units, they were made by various other manufacturers over the years, each of which was incompatible with the others.
Today they are MK in name only - a brand which some other manufacturer uses under licence.