Were these breakers tampered with?

[MJPD29]

Never seen anything like that, no damage to cable or in area of breaker I'd be expecting to see marks and no pattern to them. Never thought I'd say this but it does indeed look like someone has held a lighter to them.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Thanks Mike. Yes I believe you are correct, and second electrician has noted that it is on a 6kvh plan which he was surprised about and thought was low.

Could it be the case then that the smart meter RCD tripped and simply needed resetting and that was that. Perhaps the EDF person didn’t even need to change the main fuse (however that definitely occurred as my partner let the person in and they swapped out the fuse). She said they were there for 1-2 minutes tops and just switched it out.

That is an very low tariff, I would be surprised if it does not go off at regular intervals, I assume no electric cooking or tumble dryer as these seem to be the main culprits in these EDF switch off incoming RCD.

It's unusual for the main fuse to go, perhaps it was changed because it was faulty and the incoming RCD did it's job and just needed re-setting. Is it possible to see a picture of the main supply/meter and associated works?

Couple of other points, is there a cover for that consumer unit? if so put it back on, but at the least take the metal handle (broom) out of area.

And I agree with everyone else that has commented, that the first electrician was on a job creation scheme, never seen burning like that in a consumer unit.

 

[soapdoggy]

That is an very low tariff, I would be surprised if it does not go off at regular intervals, I assume no electric cooking or tumble dryer as these seem to be the main culprits in these EDF switch off incoming RCD.

It's actually a pretty full fledged apartment with washing machine, electric cooker, electric (convection hob), microwave and tumble drier. It's an interesting comment because we've spent a whole bunch of time here including covid lockdowns with extra load on the system from additional laptops, ipads etc.

I ran some experiments today and ran the oven + microwave and got a live draw of 4.5 kva, so it does sound plausible that adding some extra appliance usage and this could trip.

Could there be any leniency in when the Linky trips? It was Christmas Eve when it tripped, perhaps the load in the whole building was pushing up on a limit?

It's unusual for the main fuse to go, perhaps it was changed because it was faulty and the incoming RCD did it's job and just needed re-setting. Is it possible to see a picture of the main supply/meter and associated works?

I've done some digging today and posted what I can find. Main fuse outside the apartment door and then the basement setup, which I think has one Linky for the building (the big one) and then another for an apartment that is on the basement level. I couldn't really get much out of the picture for the main fuse since it's mounted super high and I didn't have a ladder to hand.

Couple of other points, is there a cover for that consumer unit? if so put it back on, but at the least take the metal handle (broom) out of area.

Oh yes it's covered now, although I don't want to post the first electricians work and have the forum rip it even further to shreds. Mr second electrician's work I will post once he's done.

And I agree with everyone else that has commented, that the first electrician was on a job creation scheme, never seen burning like that in a consumer unit.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Are you suggesting there is only one Linky meter for the whole building?

Pictures are too small to provide any additional information and does not show the original consumer unit and its incoming supply.

 

[soapdoggy]

Thanks to everyone for the help. @Mike Johnson in particular. Any additional direction on what to take photos of would be very helpful.

I think I understood what you meant now at least - on top of that consumer unit there is another box with the Linky and the load limiting RCD, but you can't see any wiring, it's all hidden. I've attached a hair of a photo and another example from the web, I'm pretty sure the RCD is the same as the example one.

As to your question about the building, my point was that in the basement there is a much larger Linky unit, when I scrolled through it's user interface it seemed to have a lot more data and some partitioned with the same title and different sub titles (e.g blah 1, blah 2, blah 3), so I wondered if that was some sort of master unit for the building, but I could be wrong.

Also, good shout on the subscription, EDF remotely increased it from 6kVA to 12kVA