What type of Consumer Unit for a house?

[ebee]

For a number of fairly recent (OK then not very distant in the scheme of things) I noticed one supplier (YEB) had a common habit of fitting a 80A fuse in the cutout and 16mm meter tails whenever they were called to connect consumer unit tails/meter changes etc. In many cases 25mm tails and 100A fuses were the existing setup but they changed them as a sort of "standard" approach.
Of course this was in the days before EV chargers and folk were expected to have no more than one electric shower say around 8.5KW max-ish if any. LEDs for lighting was pretty much in its infancy too.

 

[alan333]

The first DNO guy said that they'd recently been told not to fit 100A fuses. I sort-of doubted it based on my sparky's info (and most of yours it seems) and tried persuading him, but he was firm. When the further 2 DNO guys arrived they confirmed it and said if I was fitting a car charger it'd probably be a fast one and would be ran from it's own phase anyway.

In the meantime we didn't blow the 60A fuse so probably won't blow an 80A one and we don't have imminent plans for a car charger anyway. We are, however, much happier with the new setup rather than decades old kit and have peace of mind that circuits have been properly tested.

As a btw, the order of works was CU first, then smart meter (since my old 80A Ferranti wouldn't suit my theoretic new 100A supply). The meter installer found (or did he create?) a fault with the supply head which the DNO should attend within a few hours. It took a couple of days due to tending downed power lines etc in the recent storm but the first DNO guy couldn't work with the live cable without another colleague in case he got stuck on, hence 2 colleagues working nearby also attended.

 

[plugwash]

said if I was fitting a car charger it'd probably be a fast one and would be ran from it's own phase anyway.

While it may be possible to get a 3 phase meter and run an EV charger off it's own phase, I doubt many would go to that hassle.

Far more likely, the EV installer would just install a charger with a grid limit feature. If you go over the configured grid limit then the EV charger reduces the charging rate to compensate.