Consumer unit for a house with ground floor, first floor and attic

A consumer unit for a house with a ground floor, first floor and attic, built in a Schrack Modul 160 Compact enclosure. Each floor has its own isolator, the supply is watched by a voltage monitoring relay, and all 24 circuits are labelled on the cover.

Incoming section

• Main isolator — takes the whole house off supply from a single point.
• Voltage monitoring relay with display, driving the main contactor — if the voltage leaves the permitted range or a phase is lost, the house supply is disconnected and the appliances are protected.

Isolation by floor

The ground floor, first floor and attic each have their own isolator, marked on the cover. One floor can be made dead for work or alterations without leaving the rest of the house without power.

Circuit layout

• 24 circuits, with sockets and lighting on separate circuits, protected by B16 and B10 circuit breakers.
• Three RCD groups (G1, G2, G3), each behind its own 63 A / 30 mA RCD, so an insulation fault affects only that group.
• Dedicated circuits for the boiler, cooker hood, dishwasher, dryer, alarm, router, gate and outdoor lighting.
• One spare circuit, already wired and labelled, for a later addition.

Labelling on the cover

Under each breaker is the circuit it protects — the living room sockets, the stair lighting or the gate, for example — together with its RCD group. The isolators, relay and main contactor are marked the same way. Anyone who opens the board, the owner included, finds the right circuit without switching breakers off one by one.

Built in the workshop

The board was wired in our workshop, with distribution blocks on each phase and on neutral, then installed and connected on site. Working at the bench gives neat, checked wiring before installation and shortens the time the house is without power.

For what a residential consumer unit should contain in general, see our article What a residential consumer unit should contain.