Fuse box

Do you want to learn everything you need to know about fuse box?

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  If you confirm that the outage is only affecting your installation, you can check a series of things on the fuse box you have at home.

Fuse boxes and their components

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  The fuse box is one of the main elements required to minimise the risk of overloads and short-circuits in your installation. There are two types: traditional fuse boxes and fuse boxes in new installations.

   

  TRADITIONAL FUSE BOX

  

  In general, it is made up of three elements:

  1. Power Control Switch (PCS): Prevents damage to your installation in the case of overloads and controls your power rating to ensure it is your contracted power.
  2. Residual Current Circuit Breaker (RCCB): Used to disconnect the electrical installation quickly in the event of an earth leakage.
  3. Small Automatic Circuit Breaker (SACB): They protect each one of the interior circuits against short-circuits and overloads: lighting, air-conditioning, domestic appliances, etc. The quantity will depend on the complexity of the electrical installation.

   

  FUSE BOXES IN NEW INSTALLATIONS

  

  This type of fuse box features two elements that improve the safety of the installation:

  1. Main General Circuit Breaker (MGCB): Protects the entire installation against short-circuits and overloads and prevents the consumed power from exceeding the maximum power rating of the installation.
  2. Overvoltage Protection (OP): The OP circuit breaker prevents your electrical appliances from being damaged against any type of overvoltage.

Tips: Your fuse box

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  In many cases, the cause for the outage is a disconnection of the PCS. This happens when the devices operating at the same time (appliances, lighting, heating, etc.) exceed the contracted power. If this happens in an installation with a traditional fuse box, you should proceed as follows:

  1. Disconnect some of the devices you were using and reset the PCS after a few seconds.
  2. If the PCS cannot be reset, you might have a problem in your installation. To detect it, lower all SACBs and lift them one by one until you find out which one trips the PCS.
  3. If the PCS is being tripped too often, you might need to increase your contracted power.