Pepperpot Fuses, Switch and Meter Card
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- Опубликовано: 15 май 2024
- Ceramic rewireable fuses with a 'pepperpot' design, a double pole switch made from two single switches and a meter reading card from the 1950s.
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So you might say the holes in the fuse container are ... flameports ...
LOL
Those are for you to shove a paperclip in to see if it's live.
A wonderful trip down history lane on what technology was like back in the 1920's/1930's. Great stuff John. Keep it coming.
when I started work in the early 1950s these items were called 'coupled tumblers and bow cut outs'
as far as I know common fuse wire was 5a 15 and 30amps, what were these rates at?
I would like to know more about them
Yup, that's exactly what they were called.
Still get my power supplied through a cable that likely was laid sometime in the late 1890's, when there was a tramway running in the road outside. The old DC cables are still in the ground as well, disconnected and left there, though the substation is still in use, and has a separate mercury arc rectifier room in it as well.
Would love to see these restored 👍
The meter cards were common in council houses in the 50's/60's along with a prepayment meter. The meter man would call quarterly, compare current with previous reading, work out units used, calculate sum owing, deduct this from coinage in meter - there was almost always a pile of pennies credit which were handed back. All worked out with a pencil and paper!
My Corp'y box has a fused live AND neutral!
Reminds me of when a very young meter reader, probably agency, took the kW/h reading. He then remarked on the ancient, cast iron fuse box that feeds the meter. (It has been there since the 1930's at least and is almost a century old).
He said,
"I'll mention this old, obsolete fuse box to the office when I get back, and suggest they upgrade it for you."
I laughed and said,
"Well, good luck with that!"
He left looking puzzled. That was 20 years ago, and the old box is still there as I write, doing its job.
Those antique tumbler switches bring serious money today, after cleaning them in the ultrasonic tank.
Ha Ha Ha,
New Zealand used to import a lot of things from the UK after WWII.
I remember as an apprentice in 1989, removing this very sort of thing from an old cottage up in the foot-hills of South Canterbury here when the place was re-wired, the Tradesman that I was working with came from England and he got down on his knees and started to pray to this thing, before it was removed.
Don't ask me what that was about........
I've had the pleasure of seeing one of these blow. Was looking at houses with my parents in the early 80s and an eager estate agent was trying to get the lights to come on.
As you'd expect it spat out some white hot bits of metal that bounced off across the concrete floor... so probably a pretty solid fire risk if there's anything flammable in range.
😯
I am old enough to remember the 1950's. In the winter months we had a Belling 3 bar electric fire in the lounge. That is a full 13 amp load, if my memory is correct the sockets for them were rated at 15 amp. It was in the days when most people would run an electric iron off a light socket. Your site is always informative and you are the master of explaining something that is highly complex in an easily understood manner.
@John Ward im sure my gran had one of these still in situe in her terraced house (ones with outside bogs) cellar, obviously not wired up but still left there. as ive said in prior video comments, my grans house (still exists today) dates back to same era that those fuses came from. the house wasnt rewired until mid to late 90's as we still had those round pin plugs and needed many of those adapters for modern items.
i dont remember exactly when we got square pin sockets fitted, im going of my own childhood memories. but at somepoint late 90's my dad (who took over the house when my gran had to go into a nursing home) moved into a pub (working there) but still kept the house....unchanged if i remember correct. its only when we moved back into the house i saw the change from round pin and those 40's stile light switches (you featured on another past video) to modern ones. but im pretty damn sure we had at least one set of two fuses like shown here. there was a final major 'firesale' (everything went) renovation in early to mid 2000's before my dad sold up and moved to edinburgh in 2008.
Scary if the customer changed the fuse wire themselves and couldn't remember which way the switch went. What could possibly go wrong.
I remember there were some of these still in use in an old book shop in Derby in the mid 1990s. Light switches were 'jelly mould' kind and couldn't see any sockets!
Watch the bits about pepper pots, then suddenly skip to 5:28... Now JW is analysing the restaurant bill.... Still not making a meal out of this.. Quality video again mate.
Not relevent to many now but that wire is called VIR (Vulcanized India Rubber .... which dates it all on it's own)!
The pepperpot fuses were usually fixed to a board that was nailed into a wooden plug hammered into the mortar between two bricks! The DP switch was not sold individually as there was a different top to allow the bar to be screwed on. This needed to be removed to allow the metal cover over the switch to be removed. A good tap with a pair of pliers would loosen it enough to unscrew ;0)
Electrification of urban areas in the UK started in the 1920's and would have been different voltages and frequencies dependent on the generating station. Manchester for example had a duct with several bussbars mounted on porcelain mounts. You simply chose the voltage you wanted at a building and tapped on to the relevant bussbars! Obviously with faults occurring the bars would bend due to the magnetic pulse and Norweb (I think although it may have gone under a previous name) had a team of workers who were paid to walk the streets looking for dry spots where the bussbars were arcing!
Back in the day we would be called out to 50p Coin Meters that were jammed. We would go out and empty some coins to make room give the coins back to the customer and put an IOU in the coin box for them. For some it was the only way they survived!
The times have certainly changed!
5:30 - looking at that meter card, those meter readings from 1952-1954 were signed off (right hand column) by... JW 😳
Another fab video, thanks John. I really love to get to see this long obsolete electrical equipment. It demonstrates our houses going from the most basic of supplies in the early days when most people owned few devices to the absolute plethora of stuff we all own nowadays.
Thats really cool I saw one of those fuseboxs in an old house in newbury once. I wonder if maybe originally it was used on DC mains it has to be said older gear is so much more interesting than newer stuff
I find it fascinating how short time ago it was that the world used no plastics for anything. Plants and metals and rocks.
Plastics were around, but porcelain was used because it was seen as more reliable around electricity and high temperatures.
It turns out I have a pepperpot fuse, I had no idea what it was until I saw this video, thanks!
Still in use!
What years are these? I would guess pre 1890 to 1920, as they use standard fuse wire, if used with an external RCD could they be safe if new pvc wire used and earthing used? What is the max rating of these? I love all the old electrical stuff
@@rorypoole5582 No not still in use, it was in my collection. I don't think they're still covered under electrical regulations therefore probably can't officially still be used, but then again a fuse is a fuse and it'll do its job regardless of how old it is!
@@ArlenMoulton2I think the breaking capacity is set by the thickness and length of the fuse wire, so I suppose you could compare it to a more modern fuse say a 1930 one to get the rating, but could these be put back into use as they look cool and I think should provide the same safety as any other fuse wire system, no it's probably would need to be and a nice plaster lined glass fronted box, and a main RCD for the system, anyone have any technical information on the pepperpot fuse?
@@rorypoole5582 Breaking capacity is not the same as fusing current.Fusing current means how many amps a fuse wire will pass before melting,like 30 amps,and breaking capacity means how much current can be broken without damage,like 500 amps under a short circuit.
I can remember removeing some of those when I started my apprenterships back in 68 on house rewires !
What did they used to be rated at?
Good trip down memory lane 😊
Excellent video--thanks for doing these. Love seeing old electrics.
Still had those fuses in my parent's house in the mid 60s. Could get a belt off the brass part of the toggle switch sometimes!
I want to what insulated the brass switch?
Great video,keep it up!🟢🟧🟢
I've never seen a pepper pot fuse before, dont think do anyway, I might have seen them years ago and not realised, but I don't recall seeing those
Same ,never seen them before and I became a sparks in 1979
I had one like this in a garage that I had a few years ago.I had no idea it was a fusebox,I just assumed it was an old style of socket .It was not connected to the supply but just left on the wall with fabric covered cable going to it .Interesting to find out what it was,I never took much notice of it when it was in the garage but it looked ancient,there was a 2 pin socket connected to it if I remember rightly.
You can always enlist Big Clive if you're afraid of breaking those things. He won't be.🤣
Me and JW are having dinner
Hey JW pass the pepper pot mate... Dinner tastes reVOLTing.... Sprinkles fuse dust on food... Much better.
Could the copious amount of fuse wire in the 2nd pepperpot be an attempt to remove the neutral fuse to bring it closer to 1950's standards?
I remember seeing a pepperpot fuse as a kid, but never knew what they where, until now...thanks JW. Did i see his initials on that meter card? hmmm...😉 Love old electrical items.
That kit looks even older than the ancient stuff in my house (Edison base screw-in fuse panel, cloth and rubber insulated wiring in iron-pipe conduit, even some knob and tube wiring, although that is no longer connected).
Did anyone else notice that he meter reader was JW/
Excellent video JW, I found one of those blocks the other day, no idea how it made its way to Australia 🇦🇺
Send pictures and details
Could the multiple wires in the RH fuse be an attempt to create a neutral link?
Possibly
@@jwflame In the 1960's, for a time it was fairly common for electricians to convert existing double pole fusing to single pole by fitting a heavier guage wire to the neutral fuses (this was done in a house my parents bought in 1967). The weak point of this was that, with the more common push in porcelain fuse carriers in a fuse box was that people looking for a blown fuse could mix them up, ending up with the heavier wire in the live side. I've heard the pepperpot fuses shown here referred to as Bow fuses, presumably Bow is a manufacturer?
Nice items. What is it that makes some people fascinated with old electrical stuff? I am and I’ve no idea why.
So, the mains isolation switch is two light switches strapped together. I suppose if all you had was lighting then that wasn't too bad. The thing that always terrifies me is when electric irons and the like were plugged into the light sockets, and just how inadequate the light switches and cabling was when doing that.
Yeah, old electrics always seems 90% experimental. My old house had those toggle switches for some of the lights. In the cellar was an old bakelite fusebox that was still in use. Next to it was a single "fusebox" that was the wiring for the building before it was updated for the 70s.
My new house is a newbuild and it has isolators and everything all over it. If you so much as look at a light fitting the breaker pops.
My grannies house had all that. Bath in the kitchen with a gas geyser to heat the bath water. Iron plugged in overhead! Brilliant.
The worst bit was usually the wiring inside the lights themselves. I don't know about the UK but on the continent that was often only 0.5 mm2 so definitely on the small side for an electric iron. That's the main reason why ES27 adaptors with sockets were banned quite early. The risk of damaging the flex on a hot incandescent lamp was another.
I came across a similar installation in Sheffield. The sparky said they were from the DC days and fused + and - as the DC supply could have return paths to the generating station and ground leakage in other properties. No idea if he was talking BS or not but it made sense at the time.
I think most DC supplies were three-wire, i.e. +, neutral and -, in Europe usually 220/440 V or thereabouts. So you'd still have a fused neutral. I'd assume the reason was the same as for fused neutrals in some more modern AC TT supplies - the neutral wasn't earthed reliably enough to guarantee it couldn't cause dangerous earth faults. Some southern European countries still require double-pole MCBs and I assume that's because of the TT supplies there. I definitely know this was the reasoning in Germany, you can find that in old VDE regs.
Very nice! Notice the font (Gill Sans) on the meter card, extensively used in the UK in those days, though still used by Mr. J.W. in 2021! The D.S. (Date Stamp?) code at the bottom of the card reads 3608, would that be August 1936?
can you do a video on how to install a isolation switch
Kinda wonder what else was in that old basement.
nice short video
About 10 years ago I actually saw that very same style of fuse and isolator still in use on a old farmhouse that had only ever had a partial rewire.
Assuming the house owner is still alive and in residence then the old stuff is probably still there with current passing through albeit the part of the building with the oldest wiring unoccupied!
I certainly know a house (not in the UK) with some bits of pre-WWI wiring still in use! A very wealthy farm, more like a manor, no longer active but the main house still lived in. I think the bulk of the wiring is from the 50s, round flush black bakelite tumbler switches, but the library and adjoining veranda have braided flex on glass knobs nailed to the woodwork, including a JB with exposed live terminals no more than 7 feet off the floor. All live and in daily use. I know the elderly owner, no use telling him to make it safe, he won't.
Any idea what make they are?
Early manufacturers included GEC - a kind of electromagnet symbol , Ediswan or Lektrik, Tucker Telac. I have quite a few of them and some have makes on them and some don't. Some were rectangular shaped but still with holes in. Some had the holes in the sides of the lid.
The initials on the card .....look like JW 🤔
285 kWh/year. My fridge uses more.
Wow - that's out of the ark, isn't it?
"arc" surely
Why would you say a fuse had failed? Isn’t it more of a success if the fuse did what it was supposed to do?
😳😳😳😳
Why did they think neutral fusing was a good idea back then?
more fuses more better?
I don’t know, but if the supply is earth free and floating above earth potential (that is, the neutral is NOT connected to earth at the sub-station/ transformer), then fusing the neutral would then maybe make more sense.
@@Mark1024MAK Also,there would always be some voltage on the neutral,even is it was grounded near the transformer.And since you had no 2 pole circuit breakers then,2 fuses were the only option.
@@Mark1024MAK Either entirely floating or not sufficiently well-earthed. That was certainly the argument for fused neutrals in some countries, disconnection in case of a neutral-earth fault.
Interesting stuff! Reminds me a bit of the German Diazed system, which was introduced in 1909, but that was far more advanced. They already had a fitting element which only an electrician was able to change. The fitting element prevented that someone inserted a fuse with a too high rating. The diameter of the head is different between the ratings. And they have an indicator on the back which pops off when the fuse blows. The cap of the fuse carrier got a glas insert to see this. There's a colour code for the different fuse ratings, the colours were picked back then using the system of the Germania series postage stamps. The indicator of the fuse is coloured, and so is the fitting in the fuse carrier. The colour code was also used on the Neozed fuses which were introduced in the 1960s to replace the Diazed. The Neozed are different in diameter of the neck, there the fitting is a ring which will prevent that someone inserts a too high rated fuse.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60269#D_type_fuses
Both, the Diazed and the Neozed require special tools to insert or to remove the fitting part.
Diazed and Neozed are trademark names from Siemens, which was the inventor of these two systems. The official names are D-type and D0-type. The name Diazed also tells us were they came from: DIAmetrisch abgestufter Zweiteiliger EDison-Schmelzstöpsel (literally: Diametric staggered two-part Edison melt plug). And the successor simply used Neo (latin for new).
Fitting elements, the blue ones are 20A. The yellow one is 25A, red is 10A and grey is 16A:
www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/173265886899_/30-Sicherung-Passschrauben-f%C3%BCr-Diazed.jpg
They were a long time used as main fuses of a house, or to fuse a supply cable to a distribution board with MCBs in it. Now they also make 32A versions of them. Back in the old days there was none, after 25A came 35A and then 50 (now also 40A available). That's the reason there was an exceptional permission to fuse 32A CEE outlets with 35A fuses instead of 32A, until this fuse size was available.
Lol,i have seen dozens of DII fuse sockets with the porcelain fitting element removed,so people could put a 20A fuse in place of a 16A one.
@@mernok2001 Either bashed up leaving only the metal centre in place or removed entirely, requiring a coin in the screw cap to compensate for the missing metal bit in the base. With enough criminal energy, you can bypass pretty much any safety system, including fitting larger MCBs.
@@Ragnar8504 But puttin a 20A fuse in place of a 16A one is still much better than putting stranded copper wire in the blown 16A fuse. 1.5mm2 wiring will heat up a bit at 20A load but wont catch fire yet.
@@mernok2001 Depends on how many strands you use. I once had a situation where a 20-amp DII fuse was quite redundant because a C16 MCB had been installed upstream so I tried to "repair" the fuse, as even a solid link would have been fine in that situation. A single strand from a 1.5 mm2 flex blew rather quickly, two held fine. The load was a three-phase synchronous motor, quite small, I think less than 10 amps nominal current. If I remember correctly, the single strand survived starting the motor just fine but melted half a minute later or so.
@@Ragnar8504 Even if you use a signle strand,it can be dangerous.The fuses have sand to extinguish the arc.If you put a strand in it without the sand,several 100S of Amps of short circuit current will make a large explosion and can blow the fuse up,even causeing damage to the fuse holder. I'm not sure why would anyone install a 16A MCB before a 20A fuse.Even if it was installed after it,selectivity is questionable.Its recommended to have a 25A fuse before a 16A one,so only the 16A will blow.