Skip to main content Skip to footer Fuse board, fuse box, consumer unit. Same thing, and it is the one piece of equipment in your home that decides what happens when something goes wrong. This page covers the whole decision: how to recognise what is on your wall, whether it genuinely needs replacing, what drives the price, what happens on the day, and what Scottish law does and does not require. Fully installed from £550 + VAT.
Almost every enquiry starts with one of these. Find yours, and jump to the part of the page that answers it.
Sometimes a fault, often circuit design, occasionally one failing appliance.
🔥Stop using it and call somebody today. This is the one that does not wait.
🔌No earth fault protection at all. Almost always a replacement.
🔍Means no RCD. The most common genuine reason to replace a board.
📋Sometimes the board, sometimes something behind it. The codes tell you which.
🚗Sometimes true, sometimes not. Depends on ways, protection and supply.
🏠There is a real duty here, and it is widely overstated. The accurate version below.
💷Usually because they include different things. How to compare them properly.
⚖️Almost certainly not. What actually changed, and when.
🔧What a surveyor asks for and what the certificate does.
Five generations, described by what you can actually see rather than by build date, because boards get changed and build dates mislead. Find yours and the rest of the page makes sense.
What you see: a wooden or bakelite box with pull out carriers. Inside each, a strand of fuse wire between two screws. Often a cast iron main switch.
Protects against: overload and short circuit only. Nothing else.
What it means: no protection at all against current leaking to earth, which is the fault type that injures people. Frequently mounted on a wooden backboard, which is no longer acceptable for a new installation.
What you see: similar carriers, but each holds a sealed cartridge rather than a strand of wire. Usually a metal or plastic enclosure.
Protects against: overload and short circuit, more reliably than fuse wire, and still nothing else.
What it means: the same gap as generation one. If nothing on the board has a test button, there is no earth fault protection anywhere.
What you see: a row of small switches you reset rather than replace. Nothing larger carrying a T or TEST button.
Protects against: overload and short circuit, conveniently. Still no earth fault protection.
What it means: a real gap. It also usually means the board predates the point where RCD protection became normal, so the rest of the installation is worth testing at the same time.
What you see: breakers in two banks, each bank sitting behind a wider device with a test button.
Protects against: overload, short circuit and earth fault, with the earth fault protection shared across a group of circuits.
What it means: this is a compliant board and it is not a failure. The case for changing it is consequence rather than legality: one fault takes out every circuit behind that RCD. That matters more in some households than others.
What you see: every circuit on its own device, each with its own test button. Often a wider board with an extra module at one end.
Protects against: overload, short circuit and earth fault circuit by circuit, plus transient overvoltage where a surge protection device is fitted.
What it means: current best practice. If this is what you have, you need an inspection at most, not a new board.
One thing to settle straight away, because a lot of quotes lean on it. A plastic enclosure is not retrospectively a fault. Regulation 421.1.201, which requires non combustible enclosures for domestic consumer units, governs what gets installed now. It does not make the board already on your wall illegal or non compliant. If a quote rests on that alone, ask which regulation and which date. For what each protective device actually covers, our protection coverage breakdown maps all five fault types against all six device types.
Five questions, in order. The first yes is your answer, and if you reach the end without one, you probably do not need this.
If you answered no to all five, you probably do not need a new consumer unit. An EICR from £150 + VAT will confirm it, and it costs a fraction of a board you did not need. We would rather tell you that than sell you one.
And the honest limit of what this job does: a new board protects circuits, it does not repair them. Fitted over cable with genuinely degraded insulation, a modern RCD or RCBO board does exactly what it was designed to do, detects the leakage the old board never noticed, and trips. Repeatedly. Which is why we test before quoting rather than after.
Drivers first, because a price only means something once you know what it is responding to. All prices exclude VAT.
The board is priced by circuits. Every way is a device, a termination, a test and a line on the certificate. A four bedroom house with a shower, a hob and a garage is a different job from a one bedroom flat.
The most common chargeable extra by a distance. If main protective bonding to the incoming water and gas is missing or undersized it gets corrected, because the new board's protection depends on it. Common in older Aberdeen property and in tenement flats where services are shared.
Short, undersized or brittle tails need replacing. The earthing arrangement the property has also affects the design, and on some supplies the board is arranged differently.
An accessible hall cupboard is straightforward. An external meter box, a shared stair, or a board a long way from the meter each add work. Our page on board position covers this properly.
£40 to £80 + VAT per device. The old calculation route was removed and the assessment is now based on the consequence of a surge. You can decline it, and that decision gets recorded.
Adds meaningfully per circuit and is required only in specific premises, covered below. In an ordinary house it is recommended rather than required, and we will not quote it as a compliance item.
Moving the board to a better position is a bigger job than replacing it where it stands, and sometimes involves your energy supplier as well, because the meter is theirs.
Usually minimal on a like for like swap. More where the board moves, tails are rerouted, or an old wooden backboard is replaced.
The genuine unknown. A board change means taking responsibility for every circuit behind it, so they all get tested. If a circuit fails you are told, with the reading, and it is quoted separately rather than quietly energised.
| Work | Price |
|---|---|
| Consumer unit replacement, typical domestic | from £550, guide to £950 + VAT |
| Consumer unit and EV charger bundle | £750 to £1,000 + VAT |
| Surge protection device, per device | £40 to £80 + VAT |
| RCBO, per device plus install | £25 to £30 + VAT |
| EICR, to establish condition first | from £150 + VAT |
| Hourly rate | £55 to £75 + VAT |
| Earthing or main bonding correction | quoted after survey |
| Three phase or commercial | quoted after inspection |
This is the answer to wildly different quotes. A headline price and a considered quote are frequently pricing different scopes, and the gap is usually in the right hand column. Ask any quote you receive to state what it excludes, then compare like with like. If a quote does not mention testing, bonding or the certificate, those things are either not included or not being done.
Want a real number rather than a range? Tell us which board generation looks like yours and roughly how many circuits, and we can usually give you a close figure on the phone.
📞 Call 07304 027013How long it takes. A straightforward like for like replacement on an accessible board with a modest circuit count is comfortably a half day. A larger board, an awkward position, bonding or tail work, or faults found once the cover is off, make it a full day. You get the expected duration at quote rather than an average, because the average is not your house.
Clear access to the board and roughly a metre in front of it. Decide what genuinely must stay powered so we can plan for it. If you work from home, say so in advance and we will agree a window. Note anything with a timer that will need resetting: heating, immersion, alarm panels, anything medical. Pets somewhere settled. That is genuinely all.
Sometimes a board cannot simply be swapped. A circuit with no earth, a borrowed neutral shared between circuits, an earthing arrangement that changes the design, or a circuit that fails its insulation test. Nothing gets charged or energised without telling you first. You get the finding, the reading behind it, the options and a price, and you decide. That conversation happening mid job is normal, and it is not a sales tactic.
This matters more than it should, because much of what ranks for Aberdeen searches describes England and Wales. If a page tells you to notify Building Control, it was not written for your address.
"Your electrician must comply with Part P."
Part P does not exist in Scotland. It is a part of the Building Regulations for England and Wales. It has no force here and never has.
"A registered electrician self certifies the work to Building Control, otherwise you pay a notification fee."
Scotland has no competent person self certification scheme and no Building Control notification for this work. There is no notification fee to avoid, because there is no notification. The framework here is the Building (Scotland) Regulations and Building Standards, and for an Aberdeen address the authority is Aberdeen City Council. Your Electrical Installation Certificate is the document that evidences compliance.
"The regulations changed, so your old board is now illegal."
BS 7671 is a standard, not a law, and it is not applied retrospectively. An older board in sound condition does not become illegal when the standard is updated. What changes is what must be installed now. The honest reasons to replace a board are in the decision flow above, and "the regs changed" is not one of them.
The current version is BS 7671:2018+A4:2026, published on 15 April 2026. There is a six month transition, and from 15 October 2026 the previous version, BS 7671:2018+A2:2022+A3:2024, is withdrawn and A4 becomes the only current version. It is still the 18th Edition, and there is no 19th Edition.
Amendment 4's headline changes cover stationary battery storage, functional earthing and bonding for information and communication technology systems, Power over Ethernet, and medical locations. None of those forces a domestic consumer unit upgrade. Anyone using Amendment 4 as the reason you need a new board in an ordinary Aberdeen house is stretching it well past what it says.
Required on socket outlet circuits up to 32 A in higher risk residential buildings, houses in multiple occupation, purpose built student accommodation and care homes. Only recommended in an ordinary dwelling. That requirement arrived with Amendment 2 in 2022, not Amendment 4.
The old calculation route was removed in Amendment 2. The assessment is now based on the consequence of a surge, so it is fitted unless you decline it, and the decision is recorded. £40 to £80 + VAT.
Regulation 421.1.201 requires non combustible enclosures for domestic consumer units. It governs what is installed now and is not retrospective. Your existing plastic board is not a defect.
Not mandated. A dual RCD split load board remains compliant. Individual RCBOs are better because of what happens when a fault occurs, which is an argument about consequence rather than a legal requirement.
Last reviewed 29 July 2026. We re-check this section against the standard each quarter, and again before the 15 October 2026 changeover.
On building warrants: replacing a consumer unit in an existing house does not require one. A warrant is required for flats and maisonettes and for buildings of three storeys or more, and the duty to obtain it sits with whoever orders the work rather than the contractor. No warrant required never means no standard required, and certification applies either way.
Two duties apply, and the second is the single most overstated claim in the trade right now. It is worth reading carefully, because getting it wrong costs landlords money they did not need to spend.
Under the Repairing Standard, a private landlord needs a satisfactory Electrical Installation Condition Report at least every five years, carried out by a competent person, with a copy provided to tenants.
This one is real, and it is routinely misdescribed. Here is what the statutory guidance actually says, quoted directly:
"there must be one or more Residual Current Device (RCD) with rated residual operating current not exceeding 30 mA in the main or principal consumer unit. Normally, as a minimum, this will cover the socket-outlet circuit. However, the protection requirements will vary depending on the installation in the let property."
Scottish Government, Repairing Standard statutory guidance for private landlords, Annex D3, paragraph D.55
What the duty genuinely catches is a let property with no RCD protection at all, which means generations one, two and three in the identification section above. That is a common finding and a real reason to replace a board. If you have been told a working split load board now fails, ask which paragraph of the guidance that comes from.
The March 2024 changes went wider than electrics. The same package introduced duties on lead pipework, fixed heating, safely accessible food storage and preparation space, installations for fuels other than gas and electricity, access to common parts, and common doors, which matters in Aberdeen's tenement stock. More on our landlord electrician page.
Aberdeen City Council licenses houses in multiple occupation under Part 5 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, and the standard definition is three or more unrelated people sharing a kitchen or a bathroom. In a licensed HMO, arc fault detection devices are required on socket outlet circuits up to 32 A, where in an identical flat let to a single family they are only recommended.
Same flat, same wiring, different specification, decided purely by how it is let. It is one of the few places where the letting arrangement genuinely changes the board specification, and it is worth knowing before you buy or convert.
Managing more than one property? We work with Aberdeen landlords and agents on EICRs and remedial work across portfolios, and can schedule between tenancies.
📞 Call 07304 027013Both regularly change the job, and both have a page of their own because they deserve more room than a pillar can give them.
Where the supply enters the property there is a service cut out with a fuse in it, and that fuse caps what the whole property can draw. Common single phase ratings are 60A, 80A and 100A.
That cut out is not yours and not ours. It belongs to the distribution network operator, which in the north of Scotland is SSEN, and no electrician may lawfully change it. So when somebody asks for "a bigger fuse box", the board and the main fuse are two different things owned by two different parties. A new board does not increase what the network will give the property.
An accessible board beside the meter in a warm cupboard is the straightforward case, and it is the one price lists are written for. An external meter box on a weather facing wall, a board up a shared close two floors above the flat it feeds, or a board a long way from the meter each change the access, the specification and part of the price.
In tenement and flatted property the access question is frequently what delays a job, and it is worth resolving before booking rather than on the morning.
Enough to follow a quote. The full picture of which device catches which fault is on the page linked below.
Which of those catches which fault, and where the gaps are: the full protection coverage breakdown →
This is how most consumer unit conversations start now. Somebody quotes for something else, and the board turns out to be in the way. Three questions decide it, in this order.
Are there spare ways? If the board is physically full, the new circuit has nowhere to go. Sometimes an adjacent enclosure is a legitimate answer, sometimes replacing the board is tidier and better value, particularly where the existing board is a generation three anyway.
Can the board provide the right protection? A car charger circuit has specific requirements, and older boards frequently cannot accommodate what a modern charger installation needs. That is a genuine technical constraint rather than an upsell, and any installer should be able to explain exactly which requirement their proposal satisfies.
Can the supply carry it? The question the board cannot answer, covered in the supply section above. Adding a charger, a heat pump and an electric shower is about simultaneous demand, not the board.
Doing the board and the charger together is usually cheaper than doing them separately, which is why the bundle exists at £750 to £1,000 + VAT. More on our EV charger page.
Across the city and out through Aberdeenshire. Worth knowing which authority covers you, because it is not always the one people assume: Cults, Kingswells, Peterculter, Countesswells, Bieldside, Milltimber, Dyce and Bridge of Don are Aberdeen City, while Ellon, Westhill, Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Maryculter are Aberdeenshire.
Related: EICR in Aberdeen · when a rewire is the answer instead · landlord electrical services · all Aberdeen areas
Steven Watt founded Faithful Spark Electricians and carries out or supervises the work himself. No subcontracted labour, and the person who quotes is the person who turns up.
Every one of those is publicly verifiable, and we would rather you checked than took our word for it.
Print this, or read it down the phone. These are the eight that separate a considered quote from a number, and they are written for Scotland rather than borrowed from an English checklist.
And one to be wary of in the other direction: if an electrician tells you the work will be notified to Building Control, that they will self certify under Part P, or that your board is illegal because the regulations changed, none of those is correct in Scotland. It does not necessarily mean the work will be poor, but it does mean the paperwork they are describing does not exist here.
Don't see yours? Call 07304 027013 or get in touch. We come back the same business day.
From £550 + VAT, with a guide up to £950 + VAT depending on circuit count and complexity. The number is driven by way count first, then earthing and bonding, the state of the meter tails, where the board sits, whether surge protection is included, and what testing finds. The cost section above breaks all nine drivers down before it shows a price, because the price only means something alongside them.
Almost always scope rather than greed. Ask both quotes what they exclude. A low headline frequently does not include testing the existing circuits, correcting main bonding, replacing tails, surge protection, or in some cases the certificate itself. A quote covering all of those looks more expensive and is often cheaper by the end. If a quote does not mention testing, bonding or the certificate, those things are either not included or not being done.
If you own and live in the property, there is no law requiring you to replace a board that is in sound condition. The honest reasons are in the decision flow above, and the strongest by far is having no RCD protection at all. If you let the property, the position is different and is covered in the landlord section.
An EICR at least every five years by a competent person, with a copy to tenants. And since 1 March 2024, one or more RCDs rated at no more than 30 mA in the main consumer unit, normally covering the socket outlet circuit as a minimum. It does not require every circuit to be RCD protected, and a working split load board generally complies. What it genuinely catches is a let property with no RCD protection at all.
No to both, for an existing house. Scotland has no Part P, no Building Control notification for this work, and no competent person self certification scheme, because all three belong to England and Wales. The framework here is the Building (Scotland) Regulations, with Aberdeen City Council as the authority for Aberdeen addresses, and your Electrical Installation Certificate is the document that evidences compliance. A building warrant is required for flats and maisonettes and for buildings of three storeys or more.
A straightforward like for like replacement on an accessible board with a modest circuit count is comfortably a half day. A larger board, an awkward position, bonding or tail work, or faults found once the cover is off make it a full day. Power is off for the bulk of the working time, and we give you the expected window at quote rather than an average. Where a fridge or freezer must stay running we arrange a temporary supply.
Clear access to the board and about a metre in front of it. Tell us what genuinely must stay powered, and tell us in advance if you work from home so we can agree a window. Note anything with a timer that will need resetting: heating, immersion, alarm panels, anything medical. Pets somewhere settled. The full stage by stage sequence is in the section above.
You are told before anything is charged or energised. A circuit with no earth, a borrowed neutral, or a circuit that fails its insulation test are all things that occasionally turn up. You get the finding, the reading behind it, the options and a price, and you decide. Nothing that failed its test gets quietly reconnected.
A fuse and an MCB both protect against too much current, and neither can detect current leaking to earth. An RCD detects that leakage and is the life safety device. An RCBO combines both functions for a single circuit, so one fault takes out one circuit rather than everything behind a shared RCD. The devices section above covers all six device types, and our Ellon page maps each one against every fault type.
Because the assessment changed. The old calculation route was removed, and the decision is now based on the consequence of a surge rather than a formula. For a house full of electronics, a home office or a heat pump it is usually worth the £40 to £80 + VAT. You can decline it, and that decision gets recorded on the certificate.
In an ordinary house or flat, no. Arc fault detection is required on socket outlet circuits up to 32 A in higher risk residential buildings, houses in multiple occupation, purpose built student accommodation and care homes, and is only recommended elsewhere. If your property is a licensed HMO in Aberdeen, that requirement does apply to you. If it is a normal home and somebody is quoting AFDDs throughout as a compliance requirement, that is not correct.
Sometimes, and three questions decide it: whether there are spare ways, whether the board can provide the protection the new circuit needs, and whether the incoming supply can carry the extra demand. Older boards frequently cannot accommodate what a modern charger installation requires, which is a genuine technical constraint. Doing the board and the charger together costs £750 to £1,000 + VAT and is usually cheaper than doing them separately.
We fit boards from the established UK manufacturers, chosen to suit the circuit count, the space available and the protection required. Every board we fit meets the current standard, so the brand matters far less than the design and the installation. If you have a preference, tell us and we will price it.
It depends why it trips. If several circuits share one RCD and normal appliance leakage accumulates, individual RCBOs will fix it. If a circuit has genuinely degraded insulation, a new board will detect that fault more decisively and the circuit still needs repairing. On insurance and sales, insurers and buyers' solicitors ask for evidence that the installation is safe and certified, and an Electrical Installation Certificate or a satisfactory EICR is what answers that. An old board on its own does not invalidate a policy, but an installation that has never been tested is harder to defend.
Call Steven directly on 07304 027013, message us on WhatsApp, or use the form. The two most useful things you can tell us are which of the five board generations above looks like yours, and roughly how many circuits it has. With those two answers we can usually give you a close figure on the phone rather than a range. And if the honest answer is that you do not need a new board, you will get that answer too. NICEIC Approved Contractor, SELECT member, City & Guilds 2365-03 installation and 2391-52 inspection and testing, £2M public liability insured.
Faithful Spark Electricians Ltd · Consumer unit replacement across Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire · NICEIC Approved Contractor · SELECT Member · City & Guilds 2391-52, 2382-22, 2365-03, 2921-34 · BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 · £2M public liability insured
