Fuse box fire with photos

[uksparks]

Hi,

I just thought I would share this with you, I just called out by a letting agent saying one of their bedsits has had a fire in a fusebox...

So I turn up and see whats in the photo. There were no smoke detectors, nothing, the letting agent said, cant you just connect it back up and bypass the mess, you can imagine what I said. It needs a new board I said, jeees, how much will that cost said the bloke, he said I need it fixed now.

It winds me up how I keep coming across dangerous wiring and the like from let properties, they don't seem to care. The agent pulled up in his brand new Bentley sport and a nice looking suit, didnt care at all.

They said the person who usually does their electrics is ok at changing light bulbs but they admit they don't know what they are doing with anything more than that, it was the same bloke who's just fitted a 8.5Kw shower in this property onto the 32A breaker, its the first one past the RCD by the way.

Any ideas what may have caused this? You can see the neutral conductor on the right hand bar has snapped in some way. Id say it looks like the shower circuit could have caused this. The other thing is, there's no evidence that its had an EICR done since 2002 either.

Any thoughts welcome.

 

[stuartcourt]

looks to me like neutral not tight enough and hey presto

 

[Darkwood]

Their me expecting photo's of the board on actual fire ...Damn your ambiguous Header lol

 

[ruston]

Aye , common as the dawn.

 

[AndrewMgan1976]

What are protex boards?? They sound rubbish

 

[stuartcourt]

there not great but no worse than the MK recall of late, its mostly all chinese ****e now

 

[uksparks]

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed after what they said on the telephone! I myself think its a loose neutral, I didn't prod too much, but visually they all looked tight, but I dare say they weren't, looking at the rest its all shoddy work anyway with the amount of exposed copper on other things.

 

[7029 dave]

I would go with loose connection on neutral too at bus bar end.

 

[Steve_P]

Protek are Sh1tty Electrical aren't they?

Common as common things though.

 

[uksparks]

I quite like MK boards, they seem ok, depends who you ask as to what they say is good, everyone has something good / bad to say about most things. At least with this its not done much damage and can be fixed up relatively easily.

 

[thekingiam]

loose neutral at a guess, the connections might feel tight as sometimes the heat welds the screws.

 

[stuartcourt]

nothing against MK myself, just seems that the big names are no better half the time than the rest

 

[markc123]

Very common this like others have said.

Yeah Protek are IMO the worst make by a country mile. Stay clear like the plague.

 

[the pict]

Cheap products fitted on the cheap and well you know the rest
P

 

[telectrix]

a few butt crimps and a new N bar, bit of tape, soon fixed for a few squid. what's the problem? :74::angel_smile:

 

[Marvo]

You could probably trim that materials list to just a bit of tape if it was a Friday afternoon and you're late for your golf game.

 

[uksparks]

Thanks for the pointers about the cheap rubbish, never bought it before, certainly won't now!

 

[Taylortwocities]

Hager all the way for me, never had a problem. Solid stuff, easy to install.

It won't stop a "handyman" not torquing a shower connection properly though.

Hey, why is it always the neutral that goes? Seen a few melted shower pull switches and immersion heaters. Its always seems to be the neutral that fries, and yet Kirchoff says it should be the same..

Theories, on a postcard please >>>>

 

[Marvo]

Hey, why is it always the neutral that goes? Seen a few melted shower pull switches and immersion heaters. Its always seems to be the neutral that fries, and yet Kirchoff says it should be the same..

Theories, on a postcard please >>>>

I don't have a postcard handy but the load on the live and neutral is often not equal unless the load is linear. Think harmonics

 

[William Martin]

Looks like a case of loose / not tightened screws, a case for torque setting screwdriver to ensure correct tension of terminations