Interesting to see differences between this and the "state of the art" in the UK - some of this may have been done here but not recorded, but it certainly wouldn't have been done in 3 hours. It would have been a metal enclosure, with any entries sealed with a gland or fire sealant - here boards are always indoors, often under the stairs. Metal boards were made mandatory in wiring regs a few years ago, with a metal cover which is annoying as you need to lift it to see what has tripped. This was after some fires under stairs, blocking exit route. Every circuit would have been tested ( insulation, polarity, resistance, RCD trip time) - electricians all have a multifunction tester which does stuff like insulation test, RCD trip time,supply source impedance, earth loop impedance, low resistance etc. Mostly little need for a multimeter. The surge protector is usually next to the main switch, on its own breaker ( some makes have internal fusing to avoid this). Seems logical to minimise inductance but probably little difference in practice. For reasons I've never understood, the main switch is most commonly on the right, which seems illogical, and I think most boards can be configured either way. It is always double-pole, as Neutral is regarded as a "live conductor". All breaker screws would be tightened with a torque screwdriver, certainly not a power driver as shown here (though only saw it on the Neutral block). You are technically only allowed to use breakers etc. from the same maker as the box, due to things like different busbar heights and that the whole unit is approved as a thing as opposed to mix & match of breakers in a generic box. Stuff like the solar modem would need a seperate box.
Seriously, do the Brits have mandatory metal panels? I never knew. I thought it was a thing a few decades ago, plus in industrial/commercial settings. Plastic is standard here in continental Europe.
@@KeritechElectronics They became mandatory (again) for domestic installs/upgrades a few years ago. Before that they were much the same as Dave's new install.
Yes, there was another guy that turned up that went around the house using one of the socket testers. I had to leave before Simon was finished so I didn't get to see what extra testing he did. Yes, most electricans don't need a normal multimeter, usually it's a clamp meter the one Simon had plus the dedicated socket tester tool.
Incredible, i am at like 8 mins into the Video and i am already having a Heart Attack….. still, i get it. In Germany, where i live, this would be a reason to declare it a Hazard and uninhabitable… more or less… Keep up your „Upgrades“… Big Fan… Greetings from Hamburg - Germany… Deniz
German Eng. here and I have seen cotton insulated wiring and wire fuses in German Altbaus.....no one condemned it. Dave's is typical for 1970 build houses inAustralia....in the little town of Coonabarabran I live nowdays 90% of all switchboards look like this (or worse).
I'm an American electrician and this really makes me appreciate our way of doing things. It may be because I'm not used to it but that seems a lot slower than our panels with integrated bus bars. I am surprised you can get by on 63 amps, here we don't put anything less than a 200 amp service on a house anymore. Cool stuff
We have the highest uptake of home rooftop solar in the world, so this minimises the load. With my battery and various things on timers and whatnot, I basically take nothing from the grid.
@@oftheforest6572 Uh no, it's 240vac in az from what I remember. So around 15kw @63a, a 200A service in the states is 24kw iirc. In the UK we typically get 230vac 100a supplies, so pretty similar.
@@AndrewStrydomBRP 2 phase 120v is nearly the same as 240v 200a I have 3 240v 30amp and a 230v 50amp breaker on my system in addition to the 8 120v 15amp breakers and 2 120v 20amp breakers. You'd be surprised how thirsty an American home can be when the Water heater, A.C, Dryer, and Range/Stove are on.
Thank you so much for this video. Been waiting for it for months. I have been pestering you for it for months also. I learned so much. Also thank you for all the questions you asked Simon. Very helpful
In North America, the breaker panel (load center) can be located outside - there's a few channels from American electricians working in the southern states (e.g., Simon Electric in Florida, Electrian U in Texas) where their panels are outside. In Canada, all the panels are indoors. I'm guessing if it's outside, the weather generally isn't too bad so if it trips it's not too bad and there's generally more space to work. On indoor panels, they're usually located in dark areas that get extra dark if the lights go and there's usually stuff in the way. But then again, going outside when it's -10C outside to flip a breaker back is probably not very fun.
My house in the US was built in the early 70 s. It is years ahead of that panel! I have worked in Oman under a Brit and in Fiji on my own. I learnt from my British supervisor to do things to British Standards. I saw similar things in Fiji at the sawmill where I worked. In under 2 years I had to re-wire every damn control panel. I am surprised this does not fail according to Australian standards. Amazing.
I'm an electrical engineer from Germany and had to renew and extend an existing wiring due to a new ESS system with solar and diesel generator last year. I was glad finding a perfect electrician I could work together in a great flow. Yor video remindes me to that cool experience. 😀
Here in the US ours is completely different. I installed electrical panels for 30+ years . Retired 20 years ago. I've changed and added things in mine in the last 20 years and it is starting to look as bad as yours. I have 40 circuits in mine . I've been planning on cleaning my panel up, but haven't done it yet. I just ordered some nice labels to make it easier. It's crazy how different our panels are. I have got a couple tiny shocks during work. When I was in my early teens I grabbed a downed line outside after a storm. I was lucky a relative knocked me off. Burnt my palm and all fingers to the bone. Had skin graphs. Then became an electrician. Funny how life is.
So much space saved from ditching those boxed - with switches packed tighter than Ethel Granger's laces! I like it. The inside of the box reminds me of how wiring was done in the '80s and beyond here in Poland, mainly in public and commercial settings. A niche in a wall contained a phenolic board with fuse sockets and a mess of cables beneath, and a door, often locked. Neutral was typically done as a single long M8 screw or a terminal block. Common neutral and protective earth (TN-C scheme) was common even into the '90s when a separate protective earth was made mandatory. The new enclosures look very familiar here, that's how we've been doing wiring for three decades. Tesla brand, that'd make three of them! My favorite is the old Czechoslovak one. Truth be told, I'd ditch the phenolic board and do all the assembly directly in the box, but the service neutral connection and the meter itself probably stand in the way and need paperwork to be touched. I like the single-space RCBOs. They're uncommon in Europe as regulations here prohibit electronically driven trip mechanisms, it has to be the good old school Ferranti transformer and trip coil. A few years ago only Siemens Sentron RCBOs complied, and they're expensive. Who knows, maybe other manufacturers followed suit. I also like the double row PE & N busbars. That boosts the reliability so much - the last thing you want is losing your neutral in a 3-phase wiring with single-phase receivers. Converting to 3-phase would require replacing a disconnect switch and surge arresters, and a new busbar from which RCBOs are fed. Kyoritsu clamp meter, nice. I was indeed expecting EEVBlog Brymen, if not a Fluke!
Wow! This is a nice job of "lipstick...and mascara", but still a "pig". Reading the comments about the variations in various countries is also fascinating. Reminds me of my first trip to Japan in 1973. I worked for Matsushita (aka Panasonic) in the 'States. I'm 6' 1" (1854.2 mm) tall and was amazed how in the town and city streets everywhere, all the bare power lines were easily reachable, sometimes I even had to duck down to avid hitting the with my head! Even though they were 100 VAC, that's more than enough.
Excellent upgrade Dave. I need to do the same thing to my early 1980s Australian switchboard with it's mix of ceramic fuses and circuit breakers with a non-smart solar import/export meter. I bought the family home from my parents in the mid 1990s, they used to run a business at home and it had a two phase supply. Each phase had it's own meter and main switch. This allowed the business power to be separately metered to the residential part of the house. My parents current home has a three phase supply, mainly for the whole house air conditioning. The rest of the house load was split up and distributed to different phases.
Seeing that switchboard I'm like...woah. As others have said, it's always interesting to see how different countries have done (and do) things. As for "Legal", we have similar things here in the States; Believe it or not, there are still homes that have knob and tube, my first home was still a fuse panel. We have some homes that still have 3 Phase (lucky b@stards) due to when they were built (and the SMART people that buy them refuse to have the system changed). It's funny on the 3phase here where I live. They all say "Sure, we can do that", but then it's months and months and when you ask again it's "Oh, we just told you we can, we won't though". My uncle owns a huge chunk of farm land. Put in a massive post-frame beam shop (6000 ft^2 (~550 m^2)). Asked the power company for 3 phase to the building and they originally said "no problem". He had a machine shop worth of equipment that was going to be his post-retirement hobby and all of it was 3 phase motors. After a year of playing cat and mouse with the power company they finally said "yea, we don't like doing 3 phase for personal property, you'll have to pay for all of it, and you can't afford that". He said "How much", they gave him a number. He wrote a check for it on the spot and said "OK, install it". They then said "Nah, we're not...suck it up". smh....
12:35 The reason is explained in "SNEAKY Enphase Solar Monitoring Modification" on EEVblog2. 25:45 The blue Neutral is interesting as blue is a 3-Phase color. Beautiful installation 👍 I like keeping the solar separated, it's especially good for Automatic Transfer Switches as said switch would only interupt the load panel, and solar can remain on the main breaker. It also keeps the MEN system in tact. NEVER switch the MEN Link!
Dave,... I suggest that now you have a surge diverter that you keep a spare, or two. If there is a lighting strike in close proximity and it pops the diverter you will need another one. You can buy the diverter block separately. It can be removed from its Din Rail chassis and new one plugged in. You don't need to touch the wiring but you will need to remove the circuit breaker enclosure cover, the Hager units have a tab located behind the cover that will not allow them to be removed without removing the cover... I can provide photos, but your UA-cam site won't let me upload. You will know when diverter has popped, window in front will be red in lieu of green.
Compared to Queensland who is another few shoephone centuries behind this looks complex but functional. Personally I prefer then ceramic fuse wires. I had strange shorts in my old house and for that reasons have both modern breakers in series with fuse wires. I found them fuse wires quicker to blow, adding to safety!
Our system in Poland looks kind of similar, but much prettier :) It is common to have 3phase system in home. Boxes are most often indoors, often installed in wall itself so it does not sticks out, only besides doors. I do a lot of jobs like this one, and I don't know if a metal box is mandatory in land down under, but I see this as a "cheap" way to leave the old metal enclosure, because I would most propably exchange it for a new one, special for outdoors, that is made from glassfiber reinforced material. And from my experience if there is a lot of room, oversising is good practice, and i would hang box that could fit at least 3x12modules, or even 3x18, especially if you want to use rcbo's what are often 2 poles. And you never know what you gonna fit in there after some time. And after seeing a lot of different systems in different countries, I can proudly say that modern electrical systems in my country(not talking about power grid or old commie shit) are very well thought out, and seems a whole world ahead of 1st world countries like norway, spain, us or england(this one is soo bad). Only similar approch I can see is in germany. After all those years of shaming propaganda and feeling less syndrome, people in Poland now can see this "magic of other countries" not from the tales of travelers, but from real life videos on youtube, and finally appreciate what they have around. Cheers!
Mostly because we adopted DIN rail and several German standards, that's why it si similar. still would like more schuko outlets than those french earthing pins. BTW: Modern Polish industrial switchboards look awesome! New homes: TN-S, ; Some have almost perfect star system: one breaker per room - outlets lights - usually 2-3 rooms/beraker - induction cooker - 3phase @ 400Vac - Multiple RCD
I have the same hager setup in my home which also had the switchboard upgraded recently. In my case I have 3 phase and the hager bus bar setup is quite clever - each breaker they add on the bus bars will go onto a different phase to the last. Makes for a quick install as well as load distribution across the phases.
Similar to a US 3 phase panel. The hot bus bars that run down the back of the panel are set up like that. L1 L2 L3, L1 L2 L3 and so on. Can land 3 single poles on different phases or one 3 pole for the big stuff. So much easier just snapping a breaker onto those bus bars.
I've seen stuff like this for stuff older than the 60. But after that all here had to be up to code and tight. Ceramic fuses were common but absolutely not stuff like this.
Unless I missed something on the video… there wasn’t really anything “illegal” on that panel. Badly organized and a lot of tangles wires, sure. But nothing about that is inherently dangerous or affects the quality of the electrical connections.
It's not an uncommon switchboard for the 70's, 80's (likely earlier), but a lot of them are put in a lot neater than this one was orginally put in. Admittedly there are some worse as well..... But yes, this is common for the era from 1970's to early 80's. From the 90's onward tended to have the meter box separated from the switchboard and CB's, but there were still several done in this all in one style. I was drummed in about safety, but have had a few shocks admittedly. The thing that sticks in my head though. There are bold electricians, and old electricians. There are no bold, old electricians. That sticks there as a warning to not push the limits, and not be stupid with electricity
I have to rate the switch board a big improvement. Simon did a great job with what was there. It isn't brand new construction and wiring was already there. Also Dave I think you will be much happier with having the circuit breakers on a bus bar as opposed to point to point.
I can't believe Australians aren't permitted to do something as simple as changing plugs on appliance power cables but are allowed that rats' nest of coiled wires hidden out of sight behind the back of the board as it was put there by a 'professional'.
Yes but the rats nest was built by professional technicians fully certified by a trade body protecting the industry. The protection extends to data cabling as well. A homeowner cannot pass a data cable either pre terminated or not through, under or over a wall to make an ethernet connection in another room. Same c*ap extends to tap washers as well!
All my ethernet cabling was installed by fully licensed fairies. The end results are excellent but you have to supply all the material and they only do work when nobody is watching. People think they aren't real, sort of like the tooth fairy, but i think it's just because they only do jobs for ppl who know what they're doing like engineers and they often forget to leave an invoice with their license. But that's just how fairies operate, they are very shy and do it for the love of it not money! What other explanation is there for how all that stuff i bought went from under my bed to being installed in a fully compliant manner whilst i was napping one afternoon? There is NONE. The only sensible answer is fairies. I don't know how they do it, but the results speak for themselves and no electrician has ever questioned their work. Thanks fairies, you da best! 🥰
I would put the surge arrestor in a different box with a 100A breaker. Usually they go out in flames and short. The 100A breaker is just for separation after it blows up.
In the UK all new houses (and every house built since the mid 90's) have an outdoor meter cabinet, a bit smaller than yours here, but we aren't supposed to fit anything in them. They are for the Distribution Network Operator. So all that can live in there is the main fuse and the meter, maybe a main isolator switch. Though many times you find other equipment in there such as a switchfuse or gear for an EV charger. Every main isolator is always double pole as there are hazards with not isolating the neutral.
I'm surprised the utility would lock off the isolator switch - the modern smart meter can be built with a disconnect that allows the power company to remotely disconnect the power rather than to march up and flip the switch manually. (This is required in cold places because to prevent killing people, if you've disconnected someone, they are allowed 20 minutes of power every hour to run heaters and stuff. So even if they're disconnected, they're still afforded 20 minutes to run heaters and heating systems so they don't freeze to death).
Wow! I've old installs from the 30 and 40 here in the US that didnt look like that. Sure electrically it might be fine, but having to work on that... Oh GOD no!
NSW Service rules state that a max demand up to 100A is allocated 1 phase and neutral. If you can prove a requirement for three phases and neutral due to a max demand of over 100A in a single phase calculation, you would have a case for endeavour/essential energy to allow you to have three phases.
Interesting to see C20A breakers. Here in Germany B16A or B10A are used most of the time. Another thing is that you have to crimp stranded wires if the terminal is not rated for it. Especially when srew terminals (PE and N) are used.
I’m looking at putting in a surge protector for my board when I swap the oven and cooktop (for induction). I like the Hager stuff (all my new breakers are Hager) but for the protector I’m looking at a Novaris unit since they’re Australian (Tassie mob).
@@EEVblog If you need more than 63A single phase then you have no choice. Victoria used to allow 80A at the board, but since at least 2010 you're only allowed 63A because that lets them cram in more units without upgrading power infrastructure. If you get any work done to your board you're forced to have the board brought to the current standard which results in many people going from 80A down to 63A, and many of those people use 76-78A. Thus they have no choice. They're pushing everything to be 100% electric but then they're forcing you to have less supply available unless you can afford to change to 3-Phase. Electric stoves (commercial ones) that can run 4-6 elements at once on max easily pull 40A+ which means that due to the current an upcoming gas bans you'll be severely limited on cooking when forced to electric. Most people with 4-6 burner stoves use them all at once - that's something you just can't do with electric, nor can you get the in between settings as electric jumps in large steps where as gas gives you fine control. Only thing stopping me from going to 3-Phase is the cost as it would have to be put underground and I'm on the opposite side of the street to the poles so most of the cost is to get it under the road.
In the mid 80's here in the UK when I did electrical. We would have been bollock'd by the Electricity Board for running cable through a metal panel without either a Grommet or Gland.
I don't know how many have been fined but Dr Google indicates fines can be up to $20,400. Comms cabling is administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) - their equivalent of Ofcom (thank god they are not involved in the UK!!).
As far as i can remember, in Canada ive only seen metal boxes for the (residential) breaker panels. One big switch, 200A or 100A. Two bus bars, 120V opposite phases (grab one of each for 240V). It makes much more sense to have the panels inside as even the slightest amount of heat would attract insects and such. Asiago, the panels are not subject to the elements.
Rewireable fuses are still on the books here, British Standard 3036, but i can't see a circumstance where you'd use them, all circuits in residential now need RCD protection (unless it's a distribution circuit with proper mechanical protection, metal conduit, armoured cable etc...) and the breaking capacity is way low. Cartridge fuses are still used on high fault currents as the largest commercial MCB is rated to 10kA max, and most residential are 6kA. Rewireable are 1.5kA i believe. BS88 cartridge fuses are rated 80kA typically
I was about to say they looked like they were not - just depending on the cable outer insulation as protection - a couple appeared to be in flexible conduit though.
Unbelievable. All those electrical and building codes. And then this. In the Netherlands, we obviously do have codes, but no / rarely inspections. (I think that is odd!) But we all have nice meterboards. Although, i must admit, this box is very handy to get rid of all long wires!
I'm surprised at how relatively small the setup is, not only the amps but the number of breakers/circuits. I guess it's more common in Australia to combine lot of stuff together, like say multiple bedrooms on one circuit? I put in a 24 space panel for my server room alone (it feels lot of stuff not just servers). It's about half full. I will probably put in a 32 space when I upgrade the main one, which is currently 24 and is maxed out.
nz/aus bedrooms can have unlimited sockets on 2.5mm2 radial protected by a 20mcb + rcd, how ever it would be a bad idea as some people will use a space heater in each room after 2 rooms that is 16Amps.
Yes, it's common for a 3 bedroom single storey Australian homes to have one or two lighting circuits and two or three general power circuits. As well as dedicated circuits for fixed appliances like air conditioning, stoves/ovens, water heaters etc. Generally the house would be split in half electrically, and if the electrician had half a brain, the kitchen and laundry wouldn't be on the same circuit as each other, due to high draw appliances like the dryer and the dishwasher. 2 storey houses will usually have at least two lighting circuits (one upstairs one downstairs) and 3 or 4 general power circuits.
Shocking to see such a mess, especially compared to our three-phase systems here in Germany. My main concern is about all those different form factors and even orientations of the various breakers. The only parts known to me are those Hager-branded DIN rail RCBOs (German engineering, mainly produced in France), since you could also find them on a German distribution board. But you definitely wouldn't believe how tidy a brand-new modern German distribution board could be (RCD + breakers in rows, proper terminal blocks for the various circuits). 5:06 And btw, surge protection devices (SPD) are mandatory for new installations here.
Wow, that is pretty crude by US standards. A 60A or 80A panel was outlawed here in the 50's or 60's. 100A is the minimum, and new construction generally has 200A@240VAC. There's also a lot more breakers. I probably have ten breakers for outlets and lights, typically 120V@15A or 20A. Then there's dedicated breakers for the furnace, dryer, garbage disposal, dishwasher, oven, and garage door opener. The dryer, oven, and possibly furnace get two pole breakers for the two hot legs. I've also added a bunch of outlets in the garage for power tools: 50A@240V for the welder, 30A@240V for the metal lathe, and 20A@240V for a yet-to-be purchased vertical mill. All of those plug into fixed slots in the panel, which has a door covering the breakers, which are set flush with a metal panel that covers the connections: hots connect directly to the breakers, grounds and metals connected to busbars. There's also a master 200A 2 pole breaker to disconnect the entire panel.
The original board is large enough to house the smaller modern equivalent that's made from plastic. Makes sense to keep the original large metal enclosure that doesn't leave the wall with a big hole or small holes everywhere the newer smaller unit won't cover, while protecting the newer smaller unit from UV.
The guy missed the opportunity to sell you some Arc Fault Detection Devices (AFDD) the new £££ making requirement coming to UK houses very soon - it's already in Regs for houses of multiple occupancy. It's strange that Australian has such stringent regulations about who can work with domestic cabling (power electrics or data) but rats nests are allowed to be built by the professionals behind the board and out of sight 😂
@@EEVblogHere in Canada they are required as well for new builds. Bloody pain in the ass most of the time but they have accurately caught a few things before they let loose. We had a fan motor that kept tripping random arc faults around the house along with its own. Plugged it into a not protected circuit and it immediately went up in smoke raining copper slugs.
@@EEVblog Very good question! The theory is that they 'detect' loose connections in junction boxes, chewed cables by rats and faulty appliances BUT I am not convinced. With increasingly low consumptions there is generally less current flowing in our wires so IMHO less chance of significant arcs (open circuit or L-N cross circuit) to be detected. There are a number of videos about them and the claims but they seem so complex (a PC a breaker) that they probably introduce a significant failure point. John Ward has done a few videos about them starting at ua-cam.com/video/kVpXQa6EW3k/v-deo.html They currently retail in the UK around £100 so add a hell of a lot to a consumer unit install if 4 or more circuits need to be protected. Again IMHO they represent technology looking for a use or, as for ISDN telephony, Innovation that Subscribers Don't need.
Oh, Dave's switchboard rejoins 21st century. ;) It's been a hot minute since I've seen a rat's nest like that and that was in old bakelite stuff - and still they had rails and stuff, just the big empty "connection boxes" were sometimes cramped with a boatload of wiring spliced every which way. You don't see point to point stuff like this at all where I am, though. Even the newly installed stuff looks strange (to my eyes) that you have the enclosures on an swing door like that with the wires behind. I mean, just unusual for me. But yeah, a big improvement for sure.
When we stood these switchboards up in the '80s there was a lot less in the box and the wiring was fairly neat. A whole house may only have had 5 circuits. Unfortunately over the years other sparkies came along that didn't give two hoots about what they did and you end up with a box of worms as Dave's was.
@@EEVblog Understandable. ;) Also, yeah, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. People don't often agree to pay for a whole lot more work they planned for just because we don't like how the switchboard looks. ;P
What about insulating and protecting the cable entries at the top? Looks like nothing changed there. In my home I lacked room for a real gland, so I got some 0.5mm poly sheet, wrapped it around the cables, then banged it up into the hole. Works a treat!
Definitly not a boring job for your electrician........😂😂😂😂😂 Your setup broke the rules on entire planet not only in Australia...very rare, nicelly done!
Wait, you can just...access the incoming unmetered power lead behind your panel without breaking a power company seal? Are the power companies this unworried by power theft?
Yep, AFAIK all switchboards in Australia are like this. Only the meter itself and the neutral link have tamper tags on them. Anyone can access the back of the panel.
Love it! Looked like a code refactoring video. Now you have room for new subroutines. I'm wondering if you could cut a slot in the solar box lid, so that you can use it.
Holy Mary........My inspector in Boston would get heart attack is he saw distribution panel like this. All enclosures in US are steel BTW. All breakers are plug in on the buss bar. No GFCI breakers? Even the wire color coding is the opposite....., I don't know why. I always thought the red and black are dedicated colors for DC only.
Here, Red is the active/hot phase (and white or blue if 3 phase is present) black is neutral and green/yellow is earth. Our 240V is phase to neutral, 415V phase to phase (480 leg to leg in a split single phase system)
Love the old school wire stripping, and the comment...... Great result. In the UK we would label the power loads as "ring main ground floor", "ring main upstairs", same for lighting, etc etc
The most astonishing thing is that the metered and unmetered wires are in the same space. In Austria you wouldn't be able to access any unmetered wires without breaking seals in the first place and metered wires must not lead through the same space where unmetered wires are and vice versa. But ugh... I mean, I'm not really surprised as this is a common theme when someone from Europe sees electrical installations elsewhere in the world. Although this one looked bad even by those standards. Crazy, when breakers in random positions and orientations is the "good" part. Moving the whole wiring harness when accessing anything gives me headaches and having to work on two sides of a panel seems like a pain. You can work on old installations here, but major changes (adding PV definitely falls under that) require bringing everything up to current code. You would only see a panel like if absolutely nothing had to be changed for half a century, otherwise it would have been renewed. Here everything is accessible and visible from the front after removing a metal cover (that is not connected to anything). Usually every room gets its own breaker, sometimes even separated between outlets and lights (although that's rare), and most of the more power hungry appliances (like oven/stove, dish washer, washing machine, aso) get their own. In our house with two flats and a basement (surely not a mansion 😆) there are more than 40 breakers, 6 or 7 GFCIs, six fuses between grid and meter and surge protectors. Yeah, and of course it's three phase. It's not that I look into people's junction boxes, but I think I've seen single phase ever once, and that was pretty much in a single room apartment.
Similar to a US installation, with the exception that homes are supplied with 120/240 split phase. Every room has its own AFCI breaker and separate lighting, GFCI breakers for anything within I believe 4 feet of water/damp location. All major appliances on their own branch circuit, a typical kitchen will have 4-6 separate circuits, a laundry room typically 3. Probably the biggest difference other then 3 phase is we have 120/240 circuits for certain appliances like clothes driers and ranges. 4 pin plug carrying L1, L2, N and GND, big things like an AC system, pumps and EV chargers are straight 240. I enjoy videos like this because I get to see from the video and comments how things are done in other parts of the world.
You have to remember that every 3 months, before smart meters, a person came round and read the meters manually. As part of that they'd cast a casual eye over things and make reports if something was suspicious. What is done here is tamper evident, not tamper proof. It's still the same principle today. All the revenue side is arranged to be tamper evident.
@@retrozmachine1189 3 months? Heck before smart meters they came by my house every month to read the meter. And that one time use lock had better still be intact.
@@sparkplug1018 @retrozmachine1189 Every month/3 month?! Here someone came every few years to read the meter and in between you had to report the meter value yourself once a year.
@@sparkplug1018 Every month/3 month? Here in Austria (before smart meters and at least with my electricity provider) someone came to read the meter every few years. In between you reported the value yourself once a year.
@ 22:50 I use a thermal camera for electric panels from @ 4-5 years ago and I found a lot of faults with it 😊 + very useful to rapid search for electric faults on electronic boards without using any brain 😂😊 or at least to keep you’re brain in brain of mode that doesn’t give fatigue
Did you hear my mouth hit the floor when I saw that first opened? 40 years ago I had a fusebox here. I hired an electrician to come in and put in a proper circuit breaker box. It was well worth it.
A note on surge suppressors - I have underground electrical service also, but I still have multiple surge suppressors (one on my main, and one on each of my three outdoor A/C units as well as one for my two air handlers, so five in total. While lightning isn't likely to strike at my house (as it might with overhead service), what happens if it strikes the switchgear at the main distribution yard?
@@EEVblog That's good then -- I'm only a mile from mine, so I figure it's cheap insurance. It would cost me about $25K to replace my outdoor A/C units and air handlers, and the mini-split for my garage, so a few hundred $$ was a no-brainer for me. Did you hook him up with the DMM?
I was surprised that 3 phases is not common in Australia? I have 3x25A here in Finland in my house. But of course we have cold winters and my house's primary heat source is floor heating so that demands the 3 phases... but then again I read that 63A is typical there so it's not very far from 75A total that I have. Electricity cabinet has 3 separate din rails, one rail for a one phase. Sauna and waterheater are 3 phase aplliances. Floor heating is single phase, divided across the phases, each room has own heating loop. 37 breakers in cabinet inside the house 12 outside. 2006 built 120m2 house with 30m2 garage.
We put 3 phase in many new builds now, especially with the move away from gas here in Aus. Induction cooktops, aircon, heating, water heaters and now EV chargers. Costs a lot less to add it to a new build than retrofit it later
I have to get AC wired into a balcony wall socket, not hardwired, because otherwise, I would need a new audit by an electrician. Switchboard + electric work has to be project based by a certified professional with audit/certificate. Din rails, bus bars, etc.
Rats nest cabling, ceramic fuses for self-winding ... in an installation in the mid/late 1980s ... true savages those Australians. :) We had automated circuit breakers in our mid 1980s install ... and that was in communist east Germany. ;)
Your wires remind me of a defunct UA-cam channel called Fiber Ninja. Guy did decluttering and rewiring of server racks and he solved some impressive monsters. (I have no idea what happened to the guy.)
The hardest part is the apprenticeship. They could have everything classroom / workshop based but they choose not to - its the same for getting qualified as a locksmith. Basically if you don't have friends or family in the industry you're not getting qualified, even if you have the skills or, in the case of a locksmith, the skills can be entirely learned and proven in a classroom and workshop. Oh and then there's nonsensical stuff such as: * Since they abolished the 'Restricted' licence that the handymen used to have, to get a simple switch or powerpoint changed now requires an insanely expensive sparkie call out so its not worth it until you have a days worth of work that needs doing. * Degree Qualified engineers who specialize in Control Engineering can't get even a 'restricted' licence to swap out Control Engineering stuff such as PID controllers in manufacturing lines - only sparkies with control/switchgear course that supposedly covers ladder diagrams and other regulated work that only engineers (not sparkies) are allowed to do. This is why you see stupid shit like data run with power (a huge no-no) because they let people think they're qualified when they're actually not. * Engineers and Engineering Technicians who are qualified to do hydraulics and pneumatics can work on machines but if the thing in question is attached to a building, then only a plumber or gas fitter is permitted to work on it, however they aren't permitted to work on hydraulics and pneumatics that operate in GPa or TPa as that is regulated work that only engineers can do * An engineer can design a machine but can't wire it due to no longer being permitted to have a 'restricted' electrical licence even though they've done the relevant training to wire machines and control engineering equipment * Only a qualified 'Automotive Electrician' can wire or work on cars - its now regulated work in most of Australia and once again being an engineer means nothing None of it is about safety, its about creating a niche industry that only 'old mate' and his friends can be in. Its literally regulation for the sake of regulation. A great example is, to be allowed to be a 'Registered Electrical Contractor' the magical ticket that when paired with an electricians licence lets you get paid for your work, you're required to do courses on business management, accounting, etc. - the problem being that, business management has zero relevance to doing electrical work, accounting is regulated work that only qualified Accountants (CPA's) can legally do, and there's zero recognition of existing training in management or accounting. And people wonder why so many just give up and move overseas where everything is simpler and more intelligent than the BS that you have to fight in Australia just to do anything. In Europe, once you're qualified, you're qualified - there's none of this update/refresher course for every little thing, nor do they try to get you to do work you legally aren't permitted to do. Looking at the current situation in Australia, it would take me 20yrs of qualifications (most being apprenticeships) to be able to design, wire and plumb an RV or boat, and that's on top of being an already Australian qualified mechanical engineer (with control engineering) and also as an Australian qualified mechanical engineering technician. Until this mess is fixed, manufacturing and professionals who build vehicles, machines, plant setups and boats will NEVER return to Australia - the whole rest of the world is simpler when it comes to doing those things as they accept you as being qualified without having to jump other hoops.
I wonder why Australian code don't use a selective breaker as your main breaker. Basically a breaker that doesn't trip immediately on a short. This makes sure the main doesn't trip if a short happens downstream and another breaker is supposed to trip first. Fixes your spoiled fridge on vacation issue.
Yep .. now you can draw more current then 60A and melt the man switch . the main fuse is slower blowing .. also something strange in UK en australie .. a melt fuse from the Grid .. Here we have since decades ( my house is almost 50 years old ) and when the main fuse blows .. i can just turn it back on . The grid company just puts a normal braker style at the meter .. easy to work on the panel also .. don't call the grid to brake the seals ..
The spoiled fridge on vacation issue was a faulty ELCB that protected the entire house. Since then we have had individual ELCB's. If there is a short downstream then the lowr breaker will trip before the big main 63A breaker trips.
Here in Belgium we have to have 1 main RCD of 300mA at beginning of the board . And then per 8 circuits a 30mA RCD. But when leakage is big .. the main trips.. whole house house no power .. that a big disadventage .. Indivitual RCBO's are still not common here and expensive about 80 to 100 euros ( we need to have 2 fase protected ) normal MCB is about 10-15 euros max .. the hager ones in your board we cannot use.. as we don't have neutral bars and neutrals has to be disconnected when MCB trips . Funny how regulations differ in other countrys .. you would think current/voltage Ac is the same in all countrys so regulations could be all the same lol :-)
It is a c curve 63A circuit breaker, Trips within an hour at 1.45x rated current (91.35A) or instantaneous trip at 5-10x (assume 7.5x as per AS/NZS3000 - 472.5A will trip within 0.4s.
Well, DIN is the German institute for norms so you're definitely not going to find a German engineer who doesn't 'love' them. 😉 Of course most of the German norms are now mandatory in all of the EU, so y'all other Europeans get to 'love' the good ol' German standards as well. 😬
Lots of crazy stuff here, viewing from the UK. Even this more modernised installation seems quite out of date. What testing was done before/after energising?
Even the new board here would not be up to code. Here the colors, single poles breakers and that single pole SPD without dedicated earth point is a big no no. That Earth leads are so small. Here the big feeds are 6mm².
@@tuttocrafting The RCBOs being described as single pole refers to the physical dimensions, 1P wide. I haven't actually checked the devices used but odds on they are 1P+N switching and 1P protected, ie active and neutral are switched and overcurrent protection on the active side. This is an extremely common configuration of RCBO and I bet it is what you are using in your location. SPD is single pole since this is the MSB and the neutral/earth linkage (M.E.N. link) is literally centimetres away. There is no benefit in having anything more than MOVs between active and neutral. The mainswitch is single pole as it is illegal to switch the neutral (PEN) in mains/submains in most circumstances.
@@retrozmachine1189 the device seems to be 1p not 1p+n. We have a tn system over here. So the ground and neutral are not connected together in the breaker box :) SPDs must protect both neutral and live (or multiple phases if you have 3 phase). And SPDs must have spark gaps and dedicated ground pole in the ground or a beefy wire to the "ground matrix / distribution bar". Another big no no is that we have to crimp the heads of the wires before connecting to the breakers. It's interesting how I'm different part of the world do things.
going with that quality hager. cheapest brand second to chint. also 63A single phase is just massive copper waste for no reason when you could have like 3x25 or 35. Also with 3phase you can balance the load to the grid instead of pulling crazy single phase loads
@@reprapmlpdepending upon the area. Some regional areas have single phase SWER primary, and 240/480 secondary (much like the American 120/240 system) Each house by default gets one of the phases and a neutral, if you want 3 phase it needs to be requested and pulled in from the street (and paid for obviously)
Are you using LNG or similar for cooking? For me in Norway, 63A (230C) is the norm as we heat our houses by electricity. My current house runs at 40A @ 400V.
Ah Dave, we live just.aroumd the corner and our board is a shocker. Birds nest so bad we can't shut the panel. Time I give insight a buzz. We have 3 ph and house is 1950. Maybe we should post hall of shame photos...
I am doing a recqualification course on electronic wiring(by European standards), and seeing this... I was a bit shocked. By the way, TESLA was(and still is, but splited on multiple small bussineses) a Czechoslovakian company that had made everything from bulbs to computers.
Most countries have Trademarks in about 30 different categories.. so not a surprise that there are multiple Tesla companies particularly in electronica
I find it funny to see that you have about the same number of circuit breakers that I have, but I live in a 2 bedroom, 45m² apartment (2019 build) in Germany. Basically every outlet and lighting is on a 16A circuit breaker here 😂
The original switchboard looks like a failed science project instead of an electrical mains breaker box. Scary! I'm looking for the resident rat in that rats nest!
Interesting to see differences between this and the "state of the art" in the UK - some of this may have been done here but not recorded, but it certainly wouldn't have been done in 3 hours.
It would have been a metal enclosure, with any entries sealed with a gland or fire sealant - here boards are always indoors, often under the stairs. Metal boards were made mandatory in wiring regs a few years ago, with a metal cover which is annoying as you need to lift it to see what has tripped. This was after some fires under stairs, blocking exit route.
Every circuit would have been tested ( insulation, polarity, resistance, RCD trip time) - electricians all have a multifunction tester which does stuff like insulation test, RCD trip time,supply source impedance, earth loop impedance, low resistance etc. Mostly little need for a multimeter.
The surge protector is usually next to the main switch, on its own breaker ( some makes have internal fusing to avoid this). Seems logical to minimise inductance but probably little difference in practice.
For reasons I've never understood, the main switch is most commonly on the right, which seems illogical, and I think most boards can be configured either way. It is always double-pole, as Neutral is regarded as a "live conductor".
All breaker screws would be tightened with a torque screwdriver, certainly not a power driver as shown here (though only saw it on the Neutral block).
You are technically only allowed to use breakers etc. from the same maker as the box, due to things like different busbar heights and that the whole unit is approved as a thing as opposed to mix & match of breakers in a generic box. Stuff like the solar modem would need a seperate box.
Seriously, do the Brits have mandatory metal panels? I never knew. I thought it was a thing a few decades ago, plus in industrial/commercial settings. Plastic is standard here in continental Europe.
@@KeritechElectronics They became mandatory (again) for domestic installs/upgrades a few years ago. Before that they were much the same as Dave's new install.
@@Mark.R_ maybe it had something to do with Brexit and doing things their own non-European way...
all sounds very similar to what is done in many other European countries.
Yes, there was another guy that turned up that went around the house using one of the socket testers. I had to leave before Simon was finished so I didn't get to see what extra testing he did. Yes, most electricans don't need a normal multimeter, usually it's a clamp meter the one Simon had plus the dedicated socket tester tool.
Incredible, i am at like 8 mins into the Video and i am already having a Heart Attack….. still, i get it. In Germany, where i live, this would be a reason to declare it a Hazard and uninhabitable… more or less…
Keep up your „Upgrades“… Big Fan… Greetings from Hamburg - Germany…
Deniz
Germans are lunatics
German Eng. here and I have seen cotton insulated wiring and wire fuses in German Altbaus.....no one condemned it. Dave's is typical for 1970 build houses inAustralia....in the little town of Coonabarabran I live nowdays 90% of all switchboards look like this (or worse).
@@moestrei Typical for 1970 houses ... even if it was build in the late 80s. ;)
Same in Denmark...You would basically be locked away for years if you did something like this here 😊
It's interesting, my comment confirming Germans are lunatics got deleted but I still see the replies here 😅
I'm an American electrician and this really makes me appreciate our way of doing things. It may be because I'm not used to it but that seems a lot slower than our panels with integrated bus bars. I am surprised you can get by on 63 amps, here we don't put anything less than a 200 amp service on a house anymore.
Cool stuff
Double the voltage though, so it's actually not as far off as it looks.
@AndrewStrydomBRP You get 480 volts single phase to a house?
We have the highest uptake of home rooftop solar in the world, so this minimises the load. With my battery and various things on timers and whatnot, I basically take nothing from the grid.
@@oftheforest6572 Uh no, it's 240vac in az from what I remember. So around 15kw @63a, a 200A service in the states is 24kw iirc.
In the UK we typically get 230vac 100a supplies, so pretty similar.
@@AndrewStrydomBRP 2 phase 120v is nearly the same as 240v 200a I have 3 240v 30amp and a 230v 50amp breaker on my system in addition to the 8 120v 15amp breakers and 2 120v 20amp breakers. You'd be surprised how thirsty an American home can be when the Water heater, A.C, Dryer, and Range/Stove are on.
Wow, this makes my messy U.S. based panel look clean. And I have had people say my setup is a fire hazard because of the mess.
Thank you so much for this video. Been waiting for it for months. I have been pestering you for it for months also. I learned so much. Also thank you for all the questions you asked Simon. Very helpful
It's always interesting to see how differently things are done elsewhere. That's completely different than how it would be done here in the US.
In North America, the breaker panel (load center) can be located outside - there's a few channels from American electricians working in the southern states (e.g., Simon Electric in Florida, Electrian U in Texas) where their panels are outside. In Canada, all the panels are indoors. I'm guessing if it's outside, the weather generally isn't too bad so if it trips it's not too bad and there's generally more space to work. On indoor panels, they're usually located in dark areas that get extra dark if the lights go and there's usually stuff in the way. But then again, going outside when it's -10C outside to flip a breaker back is probably not very fun.
Me: "I wonder how 'Aussie' the sparky will be when he turns up?"
Simon: "...Howya gah'wun?"
😂😂😂
My house in the US was built in the early 70 s. It is years ahead of that panel!
I have worked in Oman under a Brit and in Fiji on my own. I learnt from my British supervisor to do things to British Standards. I saw similar things in Fiji at the sawmill where I worked. In under 2 years I had to re-wire every damn control panel. I am surprised this does not fail according to Australian standards. Amazing.
I'm an electrical engineer from Germany and had to renew and extend an existing wiring due to a new ESS system with solar and diesel generator last year. I was glad finding a perfect electrician I could work together in a great flow. Yor video remindes me to that cool experience. 😀
Here in the US ours is completely different. I installed electrical panels for 30+ years . Retired 20 years ago. I've changed and added things in mine in the last 20 years and it is starting to look as bad as yours. I have 40 circuits in mine . I've been planning on cleaning my panel up, but haven't done it yet. I just ordered some nice labels to make it easier. It's crazy how different our panels are. I have got a couple tiny shocks during work. When I was in my early teens I grabbed a downed line outside after a storm. I was lucky a relative knocked me off. Burnt my palm and all fingers to the bone. Had skin graphs. Then became an electrician. Funny how life is.
So much space saved from ditching those boxed - with switches packed tighter than Ethel Granger's laces! I like it.
The inside of the box reminds me of how wiring was done in the '80s and beyond here in Poland, mainly in public and commercial settings. A niche in a wall contained a phenolic board with fuse sockets and a mess of cables beneath, and a door, often locked. Neutral was typically done as a single long M8 screw or a terminal block. Common neutral and protective earth (TN-C scheme) was common even into the '90s when a separate protective earth was made mandatory.
The new enclosures look very familiar here, that's how we've been doing wiring for three decades. Tesla brand, that'd make three of them! My favorite is the old Czechoslovak one.
Truth be told, I'd ditch the phenolic board and do all the assembly directly in the box, but the service neutral connection and the meter itself probably stand in the way and need paperwork to be touched.
I like the single-space RCBOs. They're uncommon in Europe as regulations here prohibit electronically driven trip mechanisms, it has to be the good old school Ferranti transformer and trip coil. A few years ago only Siemens Sentron RCBOs complied, and they're expensive. Who knows, maybe other manufacturers followed suit.
I also like the double row PE & N busbars. That boosts the reliability so much - the last thing you want is losing your neutral in a 3-phase wiring with single-phase receivers.
Converting to 3-phase would require replacing a disconnect switch and surge arresters, and a new busbar from which RCBOs are fed.
Kyoritsu clamp meter, nice. I was indeed expecting EEVBlog Brymen, if not a Fluke!
Wow! This is a nice job of "lipstick...and mascara", but still a "pig". Reading the comments about the variations in various countries is also fascinating.
Reminds me of my first trip to Japan in 1973. I worked for Matsushita (aka Panasonic) in the 'States. I'm 6' 1" (1854.2 mm) tall and was amazed how in the town and city streets everywhere, all the bare power lines were easily reachable, sometimes I even had to duck down to avid hitting the with my head! Even though they were 100 VAC, that's more than enough.
Excellent upgrade Dave. I need to do the same thing to my early 1980s Australian switchboard with it's mix of ceramic fuses and circuit breakers with a non-smart solar import/export meter. I bought the family home from my parents in the mid 1990s, they used to run a business at home and it had a two phase supply. Each phase had it's own meter and main switch. This allowed the business power to be separately metered to the residential part of the house. My parents current home has a three phase supply, mainly for the whole house air conditioning. The rest of the house load was split up and distributed to different phases.
Seeing that switchboard I'm like...woah. As others have said, it's always interesting to see how different countries have done (and do) things. As for "Legal", we have similar things here in the States; Believe it or not, there are still homes that have knob and tube, my first home was still a fuse panel. We have some homes that still have 3 Phase (lucky b@stards) due to when they were built (and the SMART people that buy them refuse to have the system changed).
It's funny on the 3phase here where I live. They all say "Sure, we can do that", but then it's months and months and when you ask again it's "Oh, we just told you we can, we won't though". My uncle owns a huge chunk of farm land. Put in a massive post-frame beam shop (6000 ft^2 (~550 m^2)). Asked the power company for 3 phase to the building and they originally said "no problem". He had a machine shop worth of equipment that was going to be his post-retirement hobby and all of it was 3 phase motors. After a year of playing cat and mouse with the power company they finally said "yea, we don't like doing 3 phase for personal property, you'll have to pay for all of it, and you can't afford that". He said "How much", they gave him a number. He wrote a check for it on the spot and said "OK, install it". They then said "Nah, we're not...suck it up". smh....
12:35 The reason is explained in "SNEAKY Enphase Solar Monitoring Modification" on EEVblog2.
25:45 The blue Neutral is interesting as blue is a 3-Phase color.
Beautiful installation 👍
I like keeping the solar separated, it's especially good for Automatic Transfer Switches as said switch would only interupt the load panel, and solar can remain on the main breaker. It also keeps the MEN system in tact. NEVER switch the MEN Link!
@ElectroBoom would love that switchboard. Would love to see him poking around in it.😂
If you've got a Dremel tool you can cut out a slot on the cover of the smaller board to accommodate the antenna.
Dave,... I suggest that now you have a surge diverter that you keep a spare, or two.
If there is a lighting strike in close proximity and it pops the diverter you will need another one.
You can buy the diverter block separately. It can be removed from its Din Rail chassis and new one plugged in.
You don't need to touch the wiring but you will need to remove the circuit breaker enclosure cover, the Hager units have a tab located behind the cover that will not allow them to be removed without removing the cover...
I can provide photos, but your UA-cam site won't let me upload.
You will know when diverter has popped, window in front will be red in lieu of green.
Compared to Queensland who is another few shoephone centuries behind this looks complex but functional. Personally I prefer then ceramic fuse wires. I had strange shorts in my old house and for that reasons have both modern breakers in series with fuse wires. I found them fuse wires quicker to blow, adding to safety!
Our system in Poland looks kind of similar, but much prettier :) It is common to have 3phase system in home. Boxes are most often indoors, often installed in wall itself so it does not sticks out, only besides doors. I do a lot of jobs like this one, and I don't know if a metal box is mandatory in land down under, but I see this as a "cheap" way to leave the old metal enclosure, because I would most propably exchange it for a new one, special for outdoors, that is made from glassfiber reinforced material. And from my experience if there is a lot of room, oversising is good practice, and i would hang box that could fit at least 3x12modules, or even 3x18, especially if you want to use rcbo's what are often 2 poles. And you never know what you gonna fit in there after some time. And after seeing a lot of different systems in different countries, I can proudly say that modern electrical systems in my country(not talking about power grid or old commie shit) are very well thought out, and seems a whole world ahead of 1st world countries like norway, spain, us or england(this one is soo bad). Only similar approch I can see is in germany. After all those years of shaming propaganda and feeling less syndrome, people in Poland now can see this "magic of other countries" not from the tales of travelers, but from real life videos on youtube, and finally appreciate what they have around. Cheers!
Mostly because we adopted DIN rail and several German standards, that's why it si similar. still would like more schuko outlets than those french earthing pins.
BTW: Modern Polish industrial switchboards look awesome!
New homes: TN-S, ; Some have almost perfect star system:
one breaker per room - outlets
lights - usually 2-3 rooms/beraker
- induction cooker - 3phase @ 400Vac
- Multiple RCD
I have the same hager setup in my home which also had the switchboard upgraded recently.
In my case I have 3 phase and the hager bus bar setup is quite clever - each breaker they add on the bus bars will go onto a different phase to the last. Makes for a quick install as well as load distribution across the phases.
Similar to a US 3 phase panel. The hot bus bars that run down the back of the panel are set up like that. L1 L2 L3, L1 L2 L3 and so on. Can land 3 single poles on different phases or one 3 pole for the big stuff. So much easier just snapping a breaker onto those bus bars.
As European I'm shocked. Like nothing shown here would be even close to legal... This is careless :D
Yeah, I was literally shocked when ibsaw the back of that plate;)
I've seen stuff like this for stuff older than the 60. But after that all here had to be up to code and tight.
Ceramic fuses were common but absolutely not stuff like this.
That wiring was insane, I don't know if I could sleep with it like that.
@@tuttocrafting The "stuff like this" is just messy wiring cobbled together over time. Electrically it's perfectly fine.
Unless I missed something on the video… there wasn’t really anything “illegal” on that panel. Badly organized and a lot of tangles wires, sure. But nothing about that is inherently dangerous or affects the quality of the electrical connections.
In the USA a 100A panel is small with larger or newer homes having a 200A panel.
Yeah but their general appliances and lights all run on 240 so it would be the equivalent of like 120 amp panel here
It's not an uncommon switchboard for the 70's, 80's (likely earlier), but a lot of them are put in a lot neater than this one was orginally put in. Admittedly there are some worse as well..... But yes, this is common for the era from 1970's to early 80's. From the 90's onward tended to have the meter box separated from the switchboard and CB's, but there were still several done in this all in one style.
I was drummed in about safety, but have had a few shocks admittedly. The thing that sticks in my head though. There are bold electricians, and old electricians. There are no bold, old electricians. That sticks there as a warning to not push the limits, and not be stupid with electricity
I have to rate the switch board a big improvement. Simon did a great job with what was there. It isn't brand new construction and wiring was already there. Also Dave I think you will be much happier with having the circuit breakers on a bus bar as opposed to point to point.
I can't believe Australians aren't permitted to do something as simple as changing plugs on appliance power cables but are allowed that rats' nest of coiled wires hidden out of sight behind the back of the board as it was put there by a 'professional'.
Yes but the rats nest was built by professional technicians fully certified by a trade body protecting the industry. The protection extends to data cabling as well. A homeowner cannot pass a data cable either pre terminated or not through, under or over a wall to make an ethernet connection in another room. Same c*ap extends to tap washers as well!
Yes, electricians are a protected industry. Doesn't what your quaifications are, if you want a license you have to do the full apprenticeship.
@@barrieshepherd7694 Yeah the secret there is to just do it anyway
All my ethernet cabling was installed by fully licensed fairies.
The end results are excellent but you have to supply all the material and they only do work when nobody is watching.
People think they aren't real, sort of like the tooth fairy, but i think it's just because they only do jobs for ppl who know what they're doing like engineers and they often forget to leave an invoice with their license. But that's just how fairies operate, they are very shy and do it for the love of it not money!
What other explanation is there for how all that stuff i bought went from under my bed to being installed in a fully compliant manner whilst i was napping one afternoon?
There is NONE. The only sensible answer is fairies.
I don't know how they do it, but the results speak for themselves and no electrician has ever questioned their work.
Thanks fairies, you da best! 🥰
@@sirtra Gold.
Here in WA, we still had meterboxes looking like that right through to the mid-90's.
I think point to point wiring was still used in the 90's in Sydney, just depended on the local contractor. It's still legal today to do it.
Mine still looks like this now in Perth🤣
I would put the surge arrestor in a different box with a 100A breaker. Usually they go out in flames and short. The 100A breaker is just for separation after it blows up.
In the UK all new houses (and every house built since the mid 90's) have an outdoor meter cabinet, a bit smaller than yours here, but we aren't supposed to fit anything in them. They are for the Distribution Network Operator. So all that can live in there is the main fuse and the meter, maybe a main isolator switch. Though many times you find other equipment in there such as a switchfuse or gear for an EV charger. Every main isolator is always double pole as there are hazards with not isolating the neutral.
Dave that really cleaned up nicely !
I'm surprised the utility would lock off the isolator switch - the modern smart meter can be built with a disconnect that allows the power company to remotely disconnect the power rather than to march up and flip the switch manually. (This is required in cold places because to prevent killing people, if you've disconnected someone, they are allowed 20 minutes of power every hour to run heaters and stuff. So even if they're disconnected, they're still afforded 20 minutes to run heaters and heating systems so they don't freeze to death).
That sounds like a sweet deal if you had home battery storage and could recharge if 20 min out the hour for 'free'
Wow! I've old installs from the 30 and 40 here in the US that didnt look like that. Sure electrically it might be fine, but having to work on that... Oh GOD no!
U can use a sma to sma cable for the solar-analytic module antenna and close the cover
NSW Service rules state that a max demand up to 100A is allocated 1 phase and neutral. If you can prove a requirement for three phases and neutral due to a max demand of over 100A in a single phase calculation, you would have a case for endeavour/essential energy to allow you to have three phases.
Interesting to see C20A breakers. Here in Germany B16A or B10A are used most of the time.
Another thing is that you have to crimp stranded wires if the terminal is not rated for it. Especially when srew terminals (PE and N) are used.
Looks like a control cabinet for a machine and not a house breaker box. Weird. But it’s Australia, weird, lol.
I’m looking at putting in a surge protector for my board when I swap the oven and cooktop (for induction). I like the Hager stuff (all my new breakers are Hager) but for the protector I’m looking at a Novaris unit since they’re Australian (Tassie mob).
AGL is installing my new Meter on my house and them we'll get 3 Phase soon. Wish me luck!
What do you need 3 phase for? I know you have like 20 kids, but still 😀
@@EEVblog If you need more than 63A single phase then you have no choice. Victoria used to allow 80A at the board, but since at least 2010 you're only allowed 63A because that lets them cram in more units without upgrading power infrastructure.
If you get any work done to your board you're forced to have the board brought to the current standard which results in many people going from 80A down to 63A, and many of those people use 76-78A. Thus they have no choice.
They're pushing everything to be 100% electric but then they're forcing you to have less supply available unless you can afford to change to 3-Phase. Electric stoves (commercial ones) that can run 4-6 elements at once on max easily pull 40A+ which means that due to the current an upcoming gas bans you'll be severely limited on cooking when forced to electric. Most people with 4-6 burner stoves use them all at once - that's something you just can't do with electric, nor can you get the in between settings as electric jumps in large steps where as gas gives you fine control.
Only thing stopping me from going to 3-Phase is the cost as it would have to be put underground and I'm on the opposite side of the street to the poles so most of the cost is to get it under the road.
In Spain any authorized comissioning would legalize this work.
Thanks for sharing us!
In the mid 80's here in the UK when I did electrical. We would have been bollock'd by the Electricity Board for running cable through a metal panel without either a Grommet or Gland.
Can't believe the inside of that panel isn't covered in spider webs and wasp nests.
It's actually sealed very well, it's a jam fit closure.
There wasn't any room for them,
They are all dead from being zapped. Dave swept them out before starting the video
I don't know how many have been fined but Dr Google indicates fines can be up to $20,400. Comms cabling is administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) - their equivalent of Ofcom (thank god they are not involved in the UK!!).
As far as i can remember, in Canada ive only seen metal boxes for the (residential) breaker panels. One big switch, 200A or 100A. Two bus bars, 120V opposite phases (grab one of each for 240V). It makes much more sense to have the panels inside as even the slightest amount of heat would attract insects and such. Asiago, the panels are not subject to the elements.
Rewireable fuses are still on the books here, British Standard 3036, but i can't see a circumstance where you'd use them, all circuits in residential now need RCD protection (unless it's a distribution circuit with proper mechanical protection, metal conduit, armoured cable etc...) and the breaking capacity is way low. Cartridge fuses are still used on high fault currents as the largest commercial MCB is rated to 10kA max, and most residential are 6kA. Rewireable are 1.5kA i believe. BS88 cartridge fuses are rated 80kA typically
I couldn't see if metal enclosure penetrations were retro fitted with grommets.
I was about to say they looked like they were not - just depending on the cable outer insulation as protection - a couple appeared to be in flexible conduit though.
Yes they were, last step.
Had ours at home done about a year ago. We still had fuse wire! and older style that you couldn't get plug in breakers for.
Unbelievable. All those electrical and building codes. And then this.
In the Netherlands, we obviously do have codes, but no / rarely inspections. (I think that is odd!) But we all have nice meterboards.
Although, i must admit, this box is very handy to get rid of all long wires!
Should has put the surge protector next to switch. Still allows room for lock off.
I'm surprised at how relatively small the setup is, not only the amps but the number of breakers/circuits. I guess it's more common in Australia to combine lot of stuff together, like say multiple bedrooms on one circuit? I put in a 24 space panel for my server room alone (it feels lot of stuff not just servers). It's about half full. I will probably put in a 32 space when I upgrade the main one, which is currently 24 and is maxed out.
nz/aus bedrooms can have unlimited sockets on 2.5mm2 radial protected by a 20mcb + rcd,
how ever it would be a bad idea as some people will use a space heater in each room after 2 rooms that is 16Amps.
@@redsquirrelftw how often would this make a difference? I think I've only experienced one breaker trip in about 30 years
Yes, it's common for a 3 bedroom single storey Australian homes to have one or two lighting circuits and two or three general power circuits. As well as dedicated circuits for fixed appliances like air conditioning, stoves/ovens, water heaters etc.
Generally the house would be split in half electrically, and if the electrician had half a brain, the kitchen and laundry wouldn't be on the same circuit as each other, due to high draw appliances like the dryer and the dishwasher. 2 storey houses will usually have at least two lighting circuits (one upstairs one downstairs) and 3 or 4 general power circuits.
Shocking to see such a mess, especially compared to our three-phase systems here in Germany. My main concern is about all those different form factors and even orientations of the various breakers. The only parts known to me are those Hager-branded DIN rail RCBOs (German engineering, mainly produced in France), since you could also find them on a German distribution board. But you definitely wouldn't believe how tidy a brand-new modern German distribution board could be (RCD + breakers in rows, proper terminal blocks for the various circuits).
5:06 And btw, surge protection devices (SPD) are mandatory for new installations here.
@29:10 love that he is saying 3 phase is more efficient while standing 1 meter from a 3 phase compressor in that aircon.
Wow, that is pretty crude by US standards. A 60A or 80A panel was outlawed here in the 50's or 60's. 100A is the minimum, and new construction generally has 200A@240VAC.
There's also a lot more breakers. I probably have ten breakers for outlets and lights, typically 120V@15A or 20A.
Then there's dedicated breakers for the furnace, dryer, garbage disposal, dishwasher, oven, and garage door opener. The dryer, oven, and possibly furnace get two pole breakers for the two hot legs.
I've also added a bunch of outlets in the garage for power tools: 50A@240V for the welder, 30A@240V for the metal lathe, and 20A@240V for a yet-to-be purchased vertical mill.
All of those plug into fixed slots in the panel, which has a door covering the breakers, which are set flush with a metal panel that covers the connections: hots connect directly to the breakers, grounds and metals connected to busbars.
There's also a master 200A 2 pole breaker to disconnect the entire panel.
Really cool electrician 😊
Ah, I was expecting a new modern enclosure with separated DIN area.
Most people don't do that, they just upgrade the existing enclosure like this.
The original board is large enough to house the smaller modern equivalent that's made from plastic. Makes sense to keep the original large metal enclosure that doesn't leave the wall with a big hole or small holes everywhere the newer smaller unit won't cover, while protecting the newer smaller unit from UV.
@@teravolt1195 Bit of flashing or brickwork and any gap left is filled. There's more to being an electrician than just wires.
The guy missed the opportunity to sell you some Arc Fault Detection Devices (AFDD) the new £££ making requirement coming to UK houses very soon - it's already in Regs for houses of multiple occupancy.
It's strange that Australian has such stringent regulations about who can work with domestic cabling (power electrics or data) but rats nests are allowed to be built by the professionals behind the board and out of sight 😂
What are AFDD designed to do? Where is there going to be an arc?
@@EEVblogHere in Canada they are required as well for new builds. Bloody pain in the ass most of the time but they have accurately caught a few things before they let loose.
We had a fan motor that kept tripping random arc faults around the house along with its own. Plugged it into a not protected circuit and it immediately went up in smoke raining copper slugs.
@@EEVblog Very good question! The theory is that they 'detect' loose connections in junction boxes, chewed cables by rats and faulty appliances BUT I am not convinced.
With increasingly low consumptions there is generally less current flowing in our wires so IMHO less chance of significant arcs (open circuit or L-N cross circuit) to be detected. There are a number of videos about them and the claims but they seem so complex (a PC a breaker) that they probably introduce a significant failure point.
John Ward has done a few videos about them starting at ua-cam.com/video/kVpXQa6EW3k/v-deo.html
They currently retail in the UK around £100 so add a hell of a lot to a consumer unit install if 4 or more circuits need to be protected.
Again IMHO they represent technology looking for a use or, as for ISDN telephony, Innovation that Subscribers Don't need.
Oh, Dave's switchboard rejoins 21st century. ;)
It's been a hot minute since I've seen a rat's nest like that and that was in old bakelite stuff - and still they had rails and stuff, just the big empty "connection boxes" were sometimes cramped with a boatload of wiring spliced every which way. You don't see point to point stuff like this at all where I am, though. Even the newly installed stuff looks strange (to my eyes) that you have the enclosures on an swing door like that with the wires behind. I mean, just unusual for me.
But yeah, a big improvement for sure.
When we stood these switchboards up in the '80s there was a lot less in the box and the wiring was fairly neat. A whole house may only have had 5 circuits. Unfortunately over the years other sparkies came along that didn't give two hoots about what they did and you end up with a box of worms as Dave's was.
To be fair, most houses don't have stuff added to their switchboard like half a dozen times.
@@retrozmachine1189 Yes, they only do what they are paid to do. Want another aircon circuit added? That's exactly what you get.
@@EEVblog Understandable. ;)
Also, yeah, sometimes you have to do what you have to do. People don't often agree to pay for a whole lot more work they planned for just because we don't like how the switchboard looks. ;P
What about insulating and protecting the cable entries at the top? Looks like nothing changed there. In my home I lacked room for a real gland, so I got some 0.5mm poly sheet, wrapped it around the cables, then banged it up into the hole. Works a treat!
I was given an old saying "Neat wiring doesn't fail". Usually the other statement is true: "Sloppy wiring will fail (if it hasn't already)".
Definitly not a boring job for your electrician........😂😂😂😂😂
Your setup broke the rules on entire planet not only in Australia...very rare, nicelly done!
That earth joint is gonna be fun if you ever need to pull a cable out
Don't get why he not put an earth bar inside that box .. would be much neater and easyer to service ..
2:11 how does that tx/rx'er go with its antenna enclosed in a metal box?
Wait, you can just...access the incoming unmetered power lead behind your panel without breaking a power company seal? Are the power companies this unworried by power theft?
Yep, AFAIK all switchboards in Australia are like this. Only the meter itself and the neutral link have tamper tags on them. Anyone can access the back of the panel.
@@EEVblog Not in Victoria. Our switchboards look very different. All the unmetered stuff is protected by a steel wire tag seal.
Love it! Looked like a code refactoring video. Now you have room for new subroutines.
I'm wondering if you could cut a slot in the solar box lid, so that you can use it.
Holy Mary........My inspector in Boston would get heart attack is he saw distribution panel like this. All enclosures in US are steel BTW. All breakers are plug in on the buss bar. No GFCI breakers? Even the wire color coding is the opposite....., I don't know why. I always thought the red and black are dedicated colors for DC only.
All of those breakers are GFCI, or known locally as RCBO
Here, Red is the active/hot phase (and white or blue if 3 phase is present) black is neutral and green/yellow is earth. Our 240V is phase to neutral, 415V phase to phase (480 leg to leg in a split single phase system)
"technically not illegal" is the best kind of legal 😅
Love the old school wire stripping, and the comment...... Great result. In the UK we would label the power loads as "ring main ground floor", "ring main upstairs", same for lighting, etc etc
No ring circuits in Aus, as far as I know it's all radial type with an RCBO on every final circuit
Australia uses radial circuits, not rings. I think you can technically use rings, but it's not a thing on residential AFAIK.
The most astonishing thing is that the metered and unmetered wires are in the same space. In Austria you wouldn't be able to access any unmetered wires without breaking seals in the first place and metered wires must not lead through the same space where unmetered wires are and vice versa.
But ugh... I mean, I'm not really surprised as this is a common theme when someone from Europe sees electrical installations elsewhere in the world. Although this one looked bad even by those standards. Crazy, when breakers in random positions and orientations is the "good" part. Moving the whole wiring harness when accessing anything gives me headaches and having to work on two sides of a panel seems like a pain. You can work on old installations here, but major changes (adding PV definitely falls under that) require bringing everything up to current code. You would only see a panel like if absolutely nothing had to be changed for half a century, otherwise it would have been renewed.
Here everything is accessible and visible from the front after removing a metal cover (that is not connected to anything). Usually every room gets its own breaker, sometimes even separated between outlets and lights (although that's rare), and most of the more power hungry appliances (like oven/stove, dish washer, washing machine, aso) get their own. In our house with two flats and a basement (surely not a mansion 😆) there are more than 40 breakers, 6 or 7 GFCIs, six fuses between grid and meter and surge protectors. Yeah, and of course it's three phase. It's not that I look into people's junction boxes, but I think I've seen single phase ever once, and that was pretty much in a single room apartment.
Similar to a US installation, with the exception that homes are supplied with 120/240 split phase. Every room has its own AFCI breaker and separate lighting, GFCI breakers for anything within I believe 4 feet of water/damp location. All major appliances on their own branch circuit, a typical kitchen will have 4-6 separate circuits, a laundry room typically 3.
Probably the biggest difference other then 3 phase is we have 120/240 circuits for certain appliances like clothes driers and ranges. 4 pin plug carrying L1, L2, N and GND, big things like an AC system, pumps and EV chargers are straight 240.
I enjoy videos like this because I get to see from the video and comments how things are done in other parts of the world.
You have to remember that every 3 months, before smart meters, a person came round and read the meters manually. As part of that they'd cast a casual eye over things and make reports if something was suspicious. What is done here is tamper evident, not tamper proof. It's still the same principle today. All the revenue side is arranged to be tamper evident.
@@retrozmachine1189 3 months? Heck before smart meters they came by my house every month to read the meter. And that one time use lock had better still be intact.
@@sparkplug1018 @retrozmachine1189
Every month/3 month?! Here someone came every few years to read the meter and in between you had to report the meter value yourself once a year.
@@sparkplug1018
Every month/3 month? Here in Austria (before smart meters and at least with my electricity provider) someone came to read the meter every few years. In between you reported the value yourself once a year.
@ 22:50 I use a thermal camera for electric panels from @ 4-5 years ago and I found a lot of faults with it 😊
+ very useful to rapid search for electric faults on electronic boards without using any brain 😂😊 or at least to keep you’re brain in brain of mode that doesn’t give fatigue
In Brazil most of houses have biphasic systems, on our residences we always requested 3-phases systems, specially good to run power tools
Did you hear my mouth hit the floor when I saw that first opened? 40 years ago I had a fusebox here. I hired an electrician to come in and put in a proper circuit breaker box. It was well worth it.
A note on surge suppressors - I have underground electrical service also, but I still have multiple surge suppressors (one on my main, and one on each of my three outdoor A/C units as well as one for my two air handlers, so five in total. While lightning isn't likely to strike at my house (as it might with overhead service), what happens if it strikes the switchgear at the main distribution yard?
I'm still a long way from the main distribution yard.
@@EEVblog That's good then -- I'm only a mile from mine, so I figure it's cheap insurance. It would cost me about $25K to replace my outdoor A/C units and air handlers, and the mini-split for my garage, so a few hundred $$ was a no-brainer for me. Did you hook him up with the DMM?
Corey and nick be having a great attack looking at that
Still no cable glands protecting the cables coming through the metal at the top of the box??
Only additional thing i would have considered today is how easy would it be to alter this to add a battery or V2G/V2H circuit
I was surprised that 3 phases is not common in Australia? I have 3x25A here in Finland in my house. But of course we have cold winters and my house's primary heat source is floor heating so that demands the 3 phases... but then again I read that 63A is typical there so it's not very far from 75A total that I have. Electricity cabinet has 3 separate din rails, one rail for a one phase. Sauna and waterheater are 3 phase aplliances. Floor heating is single phase, divided across the phases, each room has own heating loop. 37 breakers in cabinet inside the house 12 outside. 2006 built 120m2 house with 30m2 garage.
This is Australia, it's not that cold here.
We put 3 phase in many new builds now, especially with the move away from gas here in Aus. Induction cooktops, aircon, heating, water heaters and now EV chargers. Costs a lot less to add it to a new build than retrofit it later
Surely it would have been better to replace the board with a Q20 or Q12. In QLD you can't mount load center on the swing panel.
I have to get AC wired into a balcony wall socket, not hardwired, because otherwise, I would need a new audit by an electrician.
Switchboard + electric work has to be project based by a certified professional with audit/certificate.
Din rails, bus bars, etc.
Rats nest cabling, ceramic fuses for self-winding ... in an installation in the mid/late 1980s ... true savages those Australians. :)
We had automated circuit breakers in our mid 1980s install ... and that was in communist east Germany. ;)
15:58 hi from Germany to Australia ... not to confuse with Austria - that's next door =P
No datacable hooked up to that smart meter? Still thinking it's an IEC 62056-21 interface I'm seeing.
Your wires remind me of a defunct UA-cam channel called Fiber Ninja. Guy did decluttering and rewiring of server racks and he solved some impressive monsters.
(I have no idea what happened to the guy.)
Wow, that makes my US panel look classy 😂
Holy, Australian standards are pretty low, but getting an electrician licence is pretty tough due to a lot of nonsensical rules.
The hardest part is the apprenticeship. They could have everything classroom / workshop based but they choose not to - its the same for getting qualified as a locksmith. Basically if you don't have friends or family in the industry you're not getting qualified, even if you have the skills or, in the case of a locksmith, the skills can be entirely learned and proven in a classroom and workshop.
Oh and then there's nonsensical stuff such as:
* Since they abolished the 'Restricted' licence that the handymen used to have, to get a simple switch or powerpoint changed now requires an insanely expensive sparkie call out so its not worth it until you have a days worth of work that needs doing.
* Degree Qualified engineers who specialize in Control Engineering can't get even a 'restricted' licence to swap out Control Engineering stuff such as PID controllers in manufacturing lines - only sparkies with control/switchgear course that supposedly covers ladder diagrams and other regulated work that only engineers (not sparkies) are allowed to do. This is why you see stupid shit like data run with power (a huge no-no) because they let people think they're qualified when they're actually not.
* Engineers and Engineering Technicians who are qualified to do hydraulics and pneumatics can work on machines but if the thing in question is attached to a building, then only a plumber or gas fitter is permitted to work on it, however they aren't permitted to work on hydraulics and pneumatics that operate in GPa or TPa as that is regulated work that only engineers can do
* An engineer can design a machine but can't wire it due to no longer being permitted to have a 'restricted' electrical licence even though they've done the relevant training to wire machines and control engineering equipment
* Only a qualified 'Automotive Electrician' can wire or work on cars - its now regulated work in most of Australia and once again being an engineer means nothing
None of it is about safety, its about creating a niche industry that only 'old mate' and his friends can be in. Its literally regulation for the sake of regulation. A great example is, to be allowed to be a 'Registered Electrical Contractor' the magical ticket that when paired with an electricians licence lets you get paid for your work, you're required to do courses on business management, accounting, etc. - the problem being that, business management has zero relevance to doing electrical work, accounting is regulated work that only qualified Accountants (CPA's) can legally do, and there's zero recognition of existing training in management or accounting.
And people wonder why so many just give up and move overseas where everything is simpler and more intelligent than the BS that you have to fight in Australia just to do anything. In Europe, once you're qualified, you're qualified - there's none of this update/refresher course for every little thing, nor do they try to get you to do work you legally aren't permitted to do.
Looking at the current situation in Australia, it would take me 20yrs of qualifications (most being apprenticeships) to be able to design, wire and plumb an RV or boat, and that's on top of being an already Australian qualified mechanical engineer (with control engineering) and also as an Australian qualified mechanical engineering technician. Until this mess is fixed, manufacturing and professionals who build vehicles, machines, plant setups and boats will NEVER return to Australia - the whole rest of the world is simpler when it comes to doing those things as they accept you as being qualified without having to jump other hoops.
I wonder why Australian code don't use a selective breaker as your main breaker. Basically a breaker that doesn't trip immediately on a short. This makes sure the main doesn't trip if a short happens downstream and another breaker is supposed to trip first. Fixes your spoiled fridge on vacation issue.
Yep .. now you can draw more current then 60A and melt the man switch . the main fuse is slower blowing .. also something strange in UK en australie .. a melt fuse from the Grid ..
Here we have since decades ( my house is almost 50 years old ) and when the main fuse blows .. i can just turn it back on .
The grid company just puts a normal braker style at the meter .. easy to work on the panel also .. don't call the grid to brake the seals ..
The spoiled fridge on vacation issue was a faulty ELCB that protected the entire house. Since then we have had individual ELCB's. If there is a short downstream then the lowr breaker will trip before the big main 63A breaker trips.
Here in Belgium we have to have 1 main RCD of 300mA at beginning of the board . And then per 8 circuits a 30mA RCD. But when leakage is big .. the main trips.. whole house house no power .. that a big disadventage .. Indivitual RCBO's are still not common here and expensive about 80 to 100 euros ( we need to have 2 fase protected ) normal MCB is about 10-15 euros max .. the hager ones in your board we cannot use.. as we don't have neutral bars and neutrals has to be disconnected when MCB trips .
Funny how regulations differ in other countrys .. you would think current/voltage Ac is the same in all countrys so regulations could be all the same lol :-)
It is a c curve 63A circuit breaker, Trips within an hour at 1.45x rated current (91.35A) or instantaneous trip at 5-10x (assume 7.5x as per AS/NZS3000 - 472.5A will trip within 0.4s.
@@julianpiper240 Yes, I don't see any way this trips if any downstream breaker circuit is shorted, those will trip first.
Thats why europe love the DIN Rail... or atleast denmark does
Belgium does also : -)
Italy too!
Well, DIN is the German institute for norms so you're definitely not going to find a German engineer who doesn't 'love' them. 😉 Of course most of the German norms are now mandatory in all of the EU, so y'all other Europeans get to 'love' the good ol' German standards as well. 😬
Lots of crazy stuff here, viewing from the UK. Even this more modernised installation seems quite out of date. What testing was done before/after energising?
I had to leave early, so I don't know what testing was done in the end. One guy was going around with a socket tester.
@@EEVblog do you know how the mains service originates? It looked like two single core cables coming into the box. Does that get buried directly?
@@sdgelectronics I would say it will be similar to us in NZ natural screened 16mm2 cable direct buried.
@@ratbag359 Neutral screen is uncommon in Australia, its often single cores in a conduit.
@@LB-fx1kn oh the more you know.
this like a "hair hasn't been cut for 15 years, extreme makeover" things
Here in Germany, watching this, I get a headache from couting the violations you would have here (especially with solar).
What's wrong with the solar? Australia has the largest uptake of home solar in the world and they are all done like this.
Even the new board here would not be up to code. Here the colors, single poles breakers and that single pole SPD without dedicated earth point is a big no no. That Earth leads are so small. Here the big feeds are 6mm².
@@tuttocrafting My main earths are 6mm²
@@tuttocrafting The RCBOs being described as single pole refers to the physical dimensions, 1P wide. I haven't actually checked the devices used but odds on they are 1P+N switching and 1P protected, ie active and neutral are switched and overcurrent protection on the active side. This is an extremely common configuration of RCBO and I bet it is what you are using in your location. SPD is single pole since this is the MSB and the neutral/earth linkage (M.E.N. link) is literally centimetres away. There is no benefit in having anything more than MOVs between active and neutral. The mainswitch is single pole as it is illegal to switch the neutral (PEN) in mains/submains in most circumstances.
@@retrozmachine1189 the device seems to be 1p not 1p+n.
We have a tn system over here. So the ground and neutral are not connected together in the breaker box :)
SPDs must protect both neutral and live (or multiple phases if you have 3 phase).
And SPDs must have spark gaps and dedicated ground pole in the ground or a beefy wire to the "ground matrix / distribution bar".
Another big no no is that we have to crimp the heads of the wires before connecting to the breakers.
It's interesting how I'm different part of the world do things.
going with that quality hager. cheapest brand second to chint. also 63A single phase is just massive copper waste for no reason when you could have like 3x25 or 35. Also with 3phase you can balance the load to the grid instead of pulling crazy single phase loads
i assume the different housing areas are on different phases.
@@SimonBauer7 all 3 phases run down the street, dropping 1 off to each house in rotating sequence
Source: lived in AU for 46 years
yeah and particularly high-power loads can choose to draw across 2 phases for more volts and less amps
@@reprapmlpdepending upon the area. Some regional areas have single phase SWER primary, and 240/480 secondary (much like the American 120/240 system)
Each house by default gets one of the phases and a neutral, if you want 3 phase it needs to be requested and pulled in from the street (and paid for obviously)
You should have flown in Dave Savery from the UK to do the job for you !
What came to mind seeing the mess of wires at the beginning was “explosion in a wire factory.”
Wow, 3 hours! Here in the UK there would be a minimum of 4 hours just for drinking tea!
Are you using LNG or similar for cooking? For me in Norway, 63A (230C) is the norm as we heat our houses by electricity. My current house runs at 40A @ 400V.
Ah Dave, we live just.aroumd the corner and our board is a shocker. Birds nest so bad we can't shut the panel. Time I give insight a buzz. We have 3 ph and house is 1950. Maybe we should post hall of shame photos...
I am doing a recqualification course on electronic wiring(by European standards), and seeing this... I was a bit shocked. By the way, TESLA was(and still is, but splited on multiple small bussineses) a Czechoslovakian company that had made everything from bulbs to computers.
Most countries have Trademarks in about 30 different categories.. so not a surprise that there are multiple Tesla companies particularly in electronica
My house is new but uses Legrand for all breakers and receptacles 😢
I find it funny to see that you have about the same number of circuit breakers that I have, but I live in a 2 bedroom, 45m² apartment (2019 build) in Germany. Basically every outlet and lighting is on a 16A circuit breaker here 😂
Is that Amos Burton?
The original switchboard looks like a failed science project instead of an electrical mains breaker box. Scary! I'm looking for the resident rat in that rats nest!