The new regulations, which will be published in January 2015, are expected to state that all consumer units fitted in residential properties will have to be made of non-combustible material or be enclosed in a non-combustible box. The change will form part of the electrical installation regulations (BS7671) which are reviewed every three years under the BSI committee JPEL64.
This activity follows major lobbying by The London Fire Brigade (LFB) and other fire investigators, having noted a recent trend in the increasing number of fires caused by faulty or poorly installed consumer units. In fact, in London alone it is now estimated that five house fires a week are caused by consumer units; a five-fold rise in just five years.
In the main, the issue appears to be associated with an increased use of moulded plastics for the casing of consumer units, instead of the once traditional metal or ‘bakelite’ options which are generally better at containing fires should they be initiated. As such, in the case of a poor installation or faulty components within the consumer unit, the risk of a fire spreading becomes a lot greater with some of the newer designs of consumer units.
Deepak Sharad, category marketing manager for Residential Distribution at Schneider Electric commented, ‘Following years of campaigning from the LFB and Electrical Safety First, it is great to see that this much needed regulation is receiving approval. Unfortunately, for some time now, there has been an insurgence of manufacturers creating poor quality plastic moulded units and devices which have had an impact on the recent increase of domestic fires and thus standards must be raised.’
