No.
Cable jointing in the street is done live. Otherwise they would have to disconnect entire neighbourhoods every time some minor repair or alteration was required.
lighting circuit keeps tripping (Ed.)
- Thread starter AstonHill
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Cable jointing in the street is done live. Otherwise they would have to disconnect entire neighbourhoods every time some minor repair or alteration was required.
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A 6 amp type B MCB, branded Control Gear Direct. Made by Lewden a number of years ago. Now obsolete.
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so you are telling me that there is no live switch for the building after the fuse box in question
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Seems unlikely. Android or iPhone? Model?
what do you mean "after"? Energy flows into your house through your meter then through your consumer unit then through your circuits. Any switch that affected the whole building would be "before" the "fuse box". Sometimes there is such a switch, as the typical way of building a house with a new electricity connection now is to have the DNO supply a cable from road to house, with big fuses in the end.. Then the metering company come, pull the fuses, attach the meter to the DNO's cable and also to a master isolator switch, then seal the fuses in.. Then your builder's sparky comes and fits your consumer unit, flips the switch off wires the CU to the isolator then flips it back on
There is no switch for the DNO guys in the road; they connect the cables while live. They are obviously very careful not to lick the end etc, as there is no protection for them other than what they're wearing and their technique. This isn't so preposterous as it sounds; every time you plug in your vacuum cleaner and pick up the wire you are holding your potential death, saved by just a millimetre of plastic. You could skin a live wire, stand on a nice big block of plastic, grab ahold of that one live wire and probably be OK, because there is nowhere for the current to flow to. Touch something grounded, or the neutral wire with your other hand and your body completes the circuit, electricity flowing across your chest; can be enough to kill you by atrial fibrillation, where your heart rhythm fails.
There is a risk too that all the circuit protection devices that exist won't activate; RCD protection activates if more energy flows in the live than the neutral, but if you're perfectly in circuit you're just a load like a light bulb. MCB protection activates if the current flow breaches a threshold for long enough, but 1 amp is sufficient to kill a person and that's actually very low
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Stop calling it a fuse box; call it a consumer unit
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