Consumer Unit Upgrade Dorset — Modern RCBO Boards from £450

A modern RCBO consumer unit upgrade in Dorset starts from £450 fully fitted — that includes the new metal-enclosed board, all RCBOs, labour, full test schedule, NICEIC Electrical Installation Certificate, and Building Control notification through the competent-person scheme. Larger boards (10-way / 14-way), three-phase rural farm boards, or installations that need new meter tails or earth rod replacement run higher — typically £550 to £1,200. We give a fixed price after a free 15-minute survey, so there are no estimates that change on the day.

We cover the whole of Dorset for consumer-unit upgrades from our Poole base at Unit 45 Balena Close (BH17 7DY) — same fixed pricing everywhere, no per-mile surcharge. We have dedicated area pages for Poole and Bournemouth (pick whichever is closest to your postcode below for area-specific details, FAQs and recent jobs). Wareham (BH20), Wimborne (BH21), Christchurch (BH23) and the surrounding villages are covered at exactly the same fixed pricing — just quoted from this hub. Sandbanks, Canford Cliffs, Broadstone and Ferndown are covered the same way.

A "fuse box" is the older terminology — a board with rewireable fuses or cartridge fuses that protect circuits from overcurrent only. A modern "consumer unit" replaces those fuses with miniature circuit breakers (MCBs), residual current devices (RCDs) or — best of all — RCBOs that combine both functions. RCBOs disconnect within 40 ms when they detect 30 mA of earth leakage. The 18th Edition wiring regulations (BS 7671:2018) require RCD protection on virtually every domestic circuit; pre-1990 boards are almost certainly non-compliant.

There's no law that forces a like-for-like upgrade purely because your board is old. Three triggers create legal pressure: (1) if you're a landlord, your 5-yearly EICR will record old-board non-compliance as a Code C2 (potentially dangerous) — you have 28 days to fix it to keep the property legally lettable; (2) if you're selling, the buyer's surveyor will flag an old board and that often becomes a price-renegotiation point; (3) if you're adding any major circuit (EV charger, electric shower, kitchen extension), the new circuit must be on a compliant board.

Yes — every consumer-unit upgrade we do includes a full Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) issued under our NICEIC enrolment, plus a Building Regulations compliance certificate from Building Control via the competent-person scheme. Both are accepted by mortgage lenders, conveyancing solicitors, BCP Council Building Control, Dorset Council Building Control, and home-buyer surveyors. Hard copies are issued on the day; digital copies arrive within 5 working days.

Yes — a consumer-unit replacement is notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations. Because we are NICEIC-registered and members of the competent-person scheme, we notify Building Control on your behalf automatically. You don't apply to BCP / Dorset Council yourself, you don't pay a separate Building Control fee, and you receive the compliance certificate by email shortly after the install. Try to use anyone who isn't in a competent-person scheme and you'll have to apply to the council yourself — and pay them £200+ for an inspection.