Plonkster, out of interest, is there a remedial action in the pipeline?
Asking because IF you paid for the house and this is the drama you are now discovering, is this not for the previous owners bill?
This is actually a good point.
We’re busy buying a house now and the agent actually mentioned that you have remedial action for things like that if you have a signed off CoC. Although this related more to finding something making arcing noises within a couple of weeks. I honestly can’t remember if that’s a bill for the sparky or the previous owner.
I guess it also depends on when you found out about the problem and if you want to go through the hassle of getting remediation if it’s a quick fix.
I can tell you what will happen. They will say that since work has been done on the installation since… they are not at fault. Also, I hate confrontation. There is a certain level of “wrong” that needs to be reached for me to overcome my dislike. Also, the previous owner (or rather the wife) is of the drama-causing variety and she will likely tell the original company (an outfit called 24 seven… wasn’t there a band by that name too?) to come fix it, you know cause they were already paid for it… so then I’m stuck with a dikbek electrician whose toes had been stepped on by someone else, who couldn’t get it right the first time, and who is not getting paid for it…
No. Not doing that.
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What I can at least say, is that the original stuff as built in 1975 is properly done. And the outbuildings (where the CoC-ing company spent most of their time fixing stuff, according to what I heard) also seem up to date now. And whatever the German guy (late 90s) did during his tenure also looks good. But the last guy who was here fancied himself somewhat of a handyman (when he was here), or had the cheapest bidder do the job (when he wasn’t here, he worked abroad), and that is a deadly combo.
The screwup I fixed this weekend practically shouted “home owner DIY job”. Which technically is my designation as well… init? 
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I had 4 other neutrals running from the kitchen light… imagine my surprise when i change the kitchen light fitting and half the house lights don’t work. Hats off to whoever wired that initially… I have NO idea how they got the neutrals into that choc block to begin with. (Also surprised that the lights were working before… I barely touched that choc block and they just all popped out!
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Not necessarily wrong, I’ve seen that before, though usually they try to daisy-chain so you have mostly two or maybe three conductors in the same terminal.
Another interesting setup, more common in older houses in the UK, is the “ceiling rose” type setup. At every light there is a permanent live and a neutral. Then you have a life wire going from the ceiling rose to the wall switch, and back from the wall switch to another terminal on the ceiling rose, where the light itself is connected.
This makes it really easy to add another light circuit. It also makes it easy to add another light switched by the same switch.
I’m sure it’s “allowed”. But that was effectively 5 neutrals (4 for other lights plus the neutral for the actual kitchen light) + the source neutral all crammed into the tiny choc block that came with the original (4ft fluoressent) fitting… clown car style!
I think the two things that stand out from this thread so far… a lot of things are “grey areas”. It’s allowed or “always done that way” - and you probably can’t moer the electrician about it.
and 2. just because it’s allowed doesn’t make it safe or right
and maybe a cheeky 3rd… good grief there’s a lot of scary crap going on in house electrical (I’m sure this is not limited to South Africa)
And conversely, just because it is not allowed doesn’t necessarily make it unsafe. So I generally work in that order. First make it safe. Then make it right.
I have finally decided to replace my old Samite board with a new 36 way Din board that has everything in one place instead of being split up all over the place.
Here is a diagram of what i propose to do…Any suggestions / comments?
When I wanted to do that, 3 sparkies quating, older guys, asked me: Why?
Me: I want it neat, redone, all new breakers, I said.
Sparkies: We can do that … or would you prefer to save a few thousand rands and spend it on more XYZ rather?
In the end I followed their advices and left what was working in the older Samite board, ok, I insisted the EL be replaced., and some minor adjustments with all the new cooler ideas moved into a new Surface Mounted Critical Loads DB … saving hours of work and costs.
Thought I share.
You got what you paid for if you do this.
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That looks like your typical uncontroversial split DB.
I know this is just pictures you used, but please don’t use that orange lever changeover with the nice ABB breakers 
If it was me I’d probably make the whole board Hager so it all looks consistent, and because it is cheaper than ABB.
Hager makes a nice changeover, SF263 for 63A and SF240 for 40A.
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I had a bit of time later so here are my more detailed comments:
Why two sets of surge arrestors in parallel?
There is redundancy where they are now, I suggest you put 1 pair downstream of the inverter out MCB ( “Main Supply 2”).
There is no tripping discrimination between 63A MCBs.
The minimum of MCBs should trip to clear the fault, whilst other MCBs maintain their loads. This can be done by cascading current ratings or MCB curves.
Why not use the double-pole capability of the load MCBs?
(Earth fault faulting is much easier).
This may not just be a “nice-to-have”.
You may be inadvertently downrating the rupture capacity, or breaking capability of the circuit breaker by only deploying half its capability.
(I don’t know, but I can’t assume either).
There may also be a non-compliance issue if the manufacturer’s recommended configuration is disregarded.
Anyway, 20 A MCBs rather than 16A MCBs are a more legally allowable flexible fit to standardize on, for future reference.
Type AC earth Leakages are unsuitable with typical loads nowadays.
There are far more electronic household loads these days than there were in the past. It is still appropriate for resistive loads, but it may cause trouble with electronic loads.
If your inverter is of a High-frequency type, the inverter ELCB must be a Type B to be compliant. If you have an LF Victron you are OK though. However, not many who sign off are aware of this compliance requirement.
I can’t see the current rating of the ELCBs in the diagram, but the relative physical size makes me suspect that they are not 63A-rated. Check this.
I assume this 36-way is a 3 x 12-way tiered layout.
Physically, I would put the two MCBs that are required to make the board dead next to each other on the top left and clearly label “Main Supply1” and “Main Supply 2”.
A solar inverter DB is plastered with labels, and the Main Supply(s) MCB(s) should be prominent and not require reading all the labels down to the second row to kill the board. It could be a possible compliance issue.
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Indeed. Even with an LF topology, I would suggest getting at least a type-A RCD. They are not prohibitively expensive and really the minimum you should have in a modern home.
I suspect he just used the pictures. But again, if you’re blowing money on a DB-board redo, perhaps using RCBOs is not a bad idea (which disconnects both live and neutral, and on an earth fault trips just the one circuit). That does add quite a bit of extra cost though.
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There is that nasty neutral-to-earth fault when all your unidentified neutrals are commoned together using single pole MCBs. That is the painful fault because you can’t even switch out the offending circuit and tend to it later.
RCBOs identify the fault automatically, they are great.
Double pole breakers with an overall ELCB are a close second because the faulty circuit can still easily be identified by a process of elimination and life can go on.
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And also much cheaper. On top of that, seeing as we just discussed using a proper type RCD, that would imply at least type-A RCBOs throughout, and since we also said that you really need a type-B RCD to be proper… you probably cannot make every RCBO a type-B, that would just kill the bank account, if such a thing even exists (the breaker, not the bank account).
Since you now get double-pole breakers that take up a single space, I think it is an excellent idea, and a very close second for fault finding.
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It would be rude not to.
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Thanks for the excellent advice, guys. Yes, I downloaded random pictures from the net to compile the diagram, so that I could post it here to see if I am on the correct track.
it does (the breaker)
but the bank account will not (>R2000 each)
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I was expecting worse! My thinking was that the basic technology (how you sense that there is a problem) won’t differ much, that only the size of the contacts and maybe the sensors changes as you make the thing smaller or larger. So if a large type-B costs more than the typical inverter, I was not expecting the RCBO to be only 2k. From RS (not the cheapest). And ABB (also not the cheapest).
I still like the idea of double-pole single-space breakers. I see a lot of UK sparkies going in that direction (though they still also have ring circuits to worry about), see for example this very neat Hager-based replacement, although this one is RCBO based of course.