Were these breakers tampered with?

[soapdoggy]

Over the holiday period my partner returned home to her apartment with no power. None of the internal breakers in the consumer unit had tripped and so she was unsure what to do. She called an electrician who took the cover off the consumer unit and then showed her these singed breakers across the board. The main fuse had blown (which sits outside the apartment in the lobby) and that was replaced by the electricity company and the electrician replaced the entire set of breakers and RCDs in the consumer unit, without providing any explanation for the fault. He said the consumer unit is approx 15 years old, which we understand to be correct.

The electrician charged approx 4x the appropriate cost for each breaker and RCD and aggressively overcharged for the time, and I feel my partner was taken for a ride here. When I found out about this event I asked another electrician to come and assess the new work and to help diagnose why we have a fault in the first place. The second electrician, upon seeing these photos, suggested that the first electrician had taken a lighter or flame to create these burn marks across the unit and created a situation of duress so he could do emergency work at holiday rates.

The quality of the replacement work is not great, two of the RCDs are too small (40 amp instead of 64) and he has forced and bent some of the connection terminals to make the breakers fit the buss bar. The second electrician is quoting a tiny amount of money (and an appropriate amount) compared to the first to upgrade the RCDs that are too small and tidy up the breakers that don't properly fit the buss bar. I know trades often insult the work of other trades, but the second electrician was much more candid and helpful and clearly pointed out additional risks, and even offered to liase with the first electrician to try and rectify the issues instead of charging us to repair recently done shoddy work.

So the question, is this what really happened?

 

[buzzlightyear]

Go on put on face book and shame this spark, what fooking cheek. He could have make more damage, what a idiot.
Bloody horse theif riding in the distance
With the moine, did you get idiot spark from the local saloon. On line.

 

[LukeD]

Go on put on face book and shame this spark, what fooking cheek. He could have make more damage, what a idiot.
Bloody horse theif riding in the distance
With the moine, did you get idiot spark from the local saloon. On line.

Not without evidence...

 

[Mike Johnson]

Has the apartment recently been changed from three phase to singleI, looks like it from the colours of the phase conductors?

Is the apartment fitted with one of the new French smart meters by EDF? if so it could trip out with an overload or DC fault and then re-set itself, the incoming protection device is in fact a load limiting RCD not to protect the owner occupier but to stop the user from using more power than their tariff payment.

 

[soapdoggy]

Has the apartment recently been changed from three phase to singleI, looks like it from the colours of the phase conductors?

Is the apartment fitted with one of the new French smart meters by EDF? if so it could trip out with an overload or DC fault and then re-set itself, the incoming protection device is in fact a load limiting RCD not to protect the owner occupier but to stop the user from using more power than their tariff payment.

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.

 

[davesparks]

I assume this cowboy was found via an emergency call-out service and as such is registered with a Part P scheme (Napit/NICEIC/few others).

Doubt it, that's not a UK consumer unit, I'd say it looks somewhat more continental.

 

[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