New Fuseboard or rewire

E

elainem

Registered User
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Hi! All,

Just moved in to a house left to me by my uncle. It was built in 1973. All of the neighbouring houses were built in and around the same time and they have replaced the fuseboards only. Is this safe? Or, should I try and rewire?

Thanks.
 
Would advise getting an electrician in to have a look. Rewiring may not be necessary. May need a new fuse board. may need both.

Electrician will confirm and quote for both
 
You can have the circuits tested, especially the earth loop but you really need to know who you are asking to test it, otherwise they may lead you to believe that you need to rewire back to Ardnacrusha if you follow.

The fuse_board upgrade is just replacing the old fuses with more modern circuit breakers: the exercise is worth doing if only to ensure there are no nails or silver paper wraps used as temp fuses in the existing. It does happen
 
I recommend going on to the ECSSA or RECI website and they would have a list of electrical contractors for you to choose from in the area you live, I'd ring around a few of them to get the best price.
 
If it was built in 1973, the wiring in general should be ok, however along with the fuseboard , bonding , earthing and tails to the meter will also need addressing. The regulations were different then & the houses were not designed for the load that is now on them
 
I thought that the standard lifetime of wiring was 25-30 years.

If you are getting work done on rest of house would look at getting it rewired at same time.
 
Don't worry too much about what was mentioned earlier as "Earth Loop" (its actually "earth loop impedance"), but rather get a competent electrician to do an insulation test on the installation.

This will involve the use of a meter termed a "Megger" and while insulation resistance approaching infinity is optimum anything above 1Meg Ohm is acceptable in a 230V domectic installation.

Assuming it passes the above you may then wish to look at upgrading the fuse board and earth bonding etc.
 
Change fuseboard or rewire

Hi! Everyone, thanks for your replies. It's great to have some of the technical terms and have them explained to me so that I appear to know what I'm talking about when I get an electrician to have a look at it - thanks Sparkrite - hopefully it will just be a new fuseboard I need, and not rewiring.
 
out of interest how much does a new fuseboard cost - can it done through ESB or is it independent of them ... we have old house and fuse board is something needs to done
 
Fuseboard is done by your own electrician. If the cables to the meter have to be changed ,the ESB get invloved , you pay the ESB seperatly for their call out cert goes to either RECI or ECSSA and they notify the ESB that the job is ready for them.

Hard to put a price on any of it until the extent of the works is examined
 
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