Old Household Fuse Box

Close up of an array of old fashioned lead fuses in a household fuse box swiss model built around the 1970ties rusty old electrical circuit breaker box on the exterior of an abandoned beach home in florida usa.

Old household fuse box. In a traditional fuse box each fuse is for a different electrical circuit. As the name hints a screw in plug fuse inserts into a threaded socket in a fuse panel much the way a lightbulb screws into a light fixture socket. Once the old consumer unit is out the way the new fuse box can then be attached. Have an old fuse box that needs changed out or just need to add one.

The fuse box found in older homes is a protective device that cuts off the electric current to a circuit that has shorted out or is overloaded. Fuse boxes for homes play a crucial role in helping to prevent electric shocks and electrical fires. Domestic consumer units receive the main electrical supply and distribute it to individual circuits throughout the home to provide electricity. When a fault or overload current flows through the fuse wire it will become hot and melt.

Be sure to read and understand your local requirements before starting any. An old fuse board will probably not contain rcd or mcb protection and as such will not offer the same safety cover it was probably designed before we started using as much electrical equipment such as microwaves ceramic hobs dozens of extra appliances including large capacity showers i have seen badly burnt fuse boards that look perfect on the outside but were close to causing a full fire in. Here is how we changed out the one in the workshop. This involves removing the front panel of the fuse box then screwing the back of the unit to the wall.

Our presenter locates a traditional fuse box where she rewires the blown fuse. Fuses may be found in place of circuit breakers rewirable fuses have a piece of special fuse wire running between two screws. The melted fuse breaks the circuit disconnecting the faulty circuit and keeping you safe. The fuse box will then be disconnected by taking the lid off the top unscrewing the fuses unhooking the wires and removing the fuse box off the wall.

A fuse box is a type of electrical service panel which is a sort of control board for the entire electrical system of a house while any home built around 1960 or later has a service panel full of circuit breakers panels in older houses used fuses to provide over current protection for the household circuits. For this reason these fuses are sometimes known as edison base fuses after the design popularized by thomas edison.