Consumer Unit Replacement in Bristol

Your consumer unit — commonly called a fuse box or fuse board — is the heart of your home's electrical system. It distributes power to every circuit in the property and provides critical safety protection. If your consumer unit is outdated, it may lack the life-saving RCD (Residual Current Device) protection required by modern regulations, leaving you and your family at risk from electric shocks and electrical fires.

A consumer unit upgrade replaces your old fuse board with a modern, metal-clad unit fitted with MCBs (Miniature Circuit Breakers) and RCDs. MCBs trip automatically when a circuit is overloaded or short-circuited, while RCDs detect earth leakage faults and disconnect the supply in milliseconds — fast enough to prevent a fatal electric shock. Together, they provide a level of protection that old rewirable fuses simply cannot match.

MB Electrical carries out consumer unit replacements across Bristol, from period properties in Clifton and Cotham to modern homes in Bradley Stoke and Filton. Since 2016, Building Regulations have required all new or replacement consumer units to be manufactured from non-combustible (metal) enclosures, significantly reducing the risk of fire at the board. A consumer unit replacement is notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations, meaning it must be carried out by a registered competent person or separately approved by Building Control. As an NICEIC Approved Contractor, we self-certify all notifiable work and register it with your local authority on your behalf — no extra paperwork for you.

When we install a new consumer unit, we fit either dual RCD protection or individual RCBOs depending on the installation. An RCD (Residual Current Device) protects a group of circuits and will disconnect the supply if an earth leakage fault is detected on any circuit it covers — the downside is that a fault on one circuit can trip multiple circuits off. An RCBO (Residual Current Breaker with Overcurrent protection) combines the function of an MCB and an RCD in a single device, protecting each circuit individually. This means a fault on one circuit will not affect the rest of the house. We discuss the options with you and recommend the best solution for your property.

MB Electrical holds NICEIC Approved Contractor status — the highest tier of NICEIC accreditation. Unlike the Domestic Installer scheme held by many electricians, Approved Contractor status requires regular assessment of competence across domestic, commercial, and industrial electrical work, giving you confidence that every job meets the highest professional standards.