How Much Does It Cost To Fit a Fusebox/Consumer Unit?



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Cost to Fit a Fusebox/Consumer Unit



Job
Description
Labour
1You want a new splitter box consumer unit in the same place as the old one. We will assume there are no faults to fix first and you don’t need an earthing upgrade. 1 man 1 all day inc. all materials (+ testing £80).
£400
2As above but with new earth bonding as well.
£625

“Labour” at £175 a day (tradesman) £100 (labourer), includes incidental fixings etc. and tipping charges. “Materials” if mentioned, are larger things (a boiler) and stuff only you can choose (tiles etc).  Also VAT must be added all round.

Information Sheet on Fitting Fuse Boxes


or “Consumer Unit” in builder speak

So…you are fed up with re wiring blown fuses in your fuse box (which Noah fitted) and want a nice new consumer unit with RCD & MCB toggles, that you just have to “switch back up” when they “trip”. Good idea, but it may not be that simple.

Blown Fuses
Fuses blow for a reason and unless you first sort out whatever problems are causing the overloads, no amount of fancy switching will work. A “proper” electrician is duty bound to fix all these problems before he can change the box. This can easily cost you far more than fitting the box itself!
That aside, the very least he will suggest, will be upgrading the earthing system at the same time. This is also explained in our section on electrics, the rules. Go on…have a little peek!

What’s all RCD/MCB malarky?

(Residual Circuit Device —-Micro Circuit Breaker)

The new box will be a “splitter box”. Split between the ring main circuits and the lighting circuits. All circuits will have the lovely little toggle switches (MCB’s) which replace the old rewireable fuses. The ring main circuits will also have RCD “super protection”. This means that when little Johnny shoves a nail into a wall socket, the RCD will “trip” far faster even than the MCB’s do and Johnny will live to get his well-deserved good hiding.

When the RCD trips, all the circuits it’s protecting go out with it. But when the problem is fixed you just flick the switch back up again and off you go.

Lighting circuits don’t get RCD protection because they don’t deliver the level of power that will kill you and bloody Johnny can’t reach them. Also there are more things to go wrong with lighting circuits and as the RCD is very sensitive it could keep “tripping” all the time and taking all the lighting circuits with it.

For instance if you have a splitter box you will have experienced the relevant lighting circuit “tripping” every time a bulb goes. With an RCD on all the lighting, all the lighting circuits would go out, not just the one with the blown bulb.

Electrical Earthing

If you upgrade the earthing, you will certainly get more “trips”. In fact it’s good earthing that trips the MCB when a light bulb blows. This is because all the earths are now connected together.

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