“Most boards I see in Poole are 18th Edition split-load units fitted in the early 2000s. They worked fine in their day, but they only have two RCDs covering the whole house — trip one and you lose half the property. A modern RCBO board gives every circuit its own protection, so a fault in the kitchen never takes the lights out upstairs. That's the practical reason most of my customers upgrade.”
— Tim, Founder & NICEIC Engineer
Consumer Unit Upgrade Pricing in Poole
Fixed-price quotes after a free 15-minute survey. Every price below includes materials, labour, full testing schedule, the NICEIC certificate, and Building Control notification.
| Board type | Price (fully fitted) |
|---|---|
| 6-way RCBO board (small flat / 1-bed) | From £450 |
| 10-way RCBO board (typical 2–3 bed home) | From £550 |
| 14-way RCBO board (4–5 bed / extended home) | From £750 |
| Add SPD (surge protection device) | + £95 |
| Add AFDD (arc fault detection) per circuit | + £65 |
| Three-phase commercial board | From £1,200 |
Most Poole homes fall into the 6-way or 10-way bracket. Older properties in Sandbanks, Canford Cliffs and the conservation streets around the harbour sometimes need new meter tails alongside the board change — we'll flag this on survey before quoting.
How a Lilliput Consumer Unit Upgrade Works
Three steps from first call to a fully certified board. No call centres, no subcontractors — you deal with Tim or one of the team directly throughout.
1. Free survey & fixed quote
We come to your property, photograph the existing board, check the incoming supply (TN-S, TN-C-S or TT earthing), inspect the meter tails and main earth, and write down circuit by circuit what's connected. You get a fixed-price written quote within 24 hours — no "estimates" that creep up later.
2. Booked-in install day
Most jobs are booked within 1–2 weeks. On the day, we arrive at 8 AM, isolate at the cutout (we contact your DNO to pull the meter seal if needed), fit the new RCBO board, re-terminate every circuit, label everything clearly, and run the full Electrical Installation Certificate test schedule. Power is back on the same evening — usually mid-afternoon.
3. Certification & aftercare
You get a hard copy of your Electrical Installation Certificate on the day, the NICEIC sticker on the board, and the digital certificate by email within 5 working days. We notify Building Control automatically through the NICEIC competent person scheme — you don't need to do anything. Six-year workmanship guarantee on every board we fit.
What Actually Changes When You Upgrade
Most homeowners we talk to in Poole are unsure what they're really getting for the £450–£1,200 spend. Here's the practical difference.
Old fuse box / pre-2008 split-load board
- Rewireable fuses or BS 1361 cartridge fuses (slow to disconnect under fault)
- No RCD protection, or one RCD covering the whole house
- No protection for sockets that might serve outdoor equipment
- No labelling of circuits beyond pencil markings
- Likely no main earth conductor of correct size
Modern 18th Edition RCBO consumer unit
- Each circuit on its own RCBO — trips disconnect that one circuit only
- 30 mA RCD protection on every circuit (Code C3 fail without it)
- Optional surge protection device (SPD) protects against transient overvoltage from lightning or grid switching
- Optional AFDDs (arc fault detection devices) on bedroom and high-risk circuits — recommended in the 2022 amendment
- Metal enclosure (steel) to BS 7671:2018, replacing combustible plastic enclosures
- Clear typed circuit labelling and a properly bonded main earth
Codes you might see on an EICR
If you've had an EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report) recently and it came back unsatisfactory, the codes that most often trigger a board upgrade are:
- C1 — Danger present: immediate risk. The board must be made safe before the engineer leaves.
- C2 — Potentially dangerous: needs fixing within 28 days for landlords. Most "no RCD on socket circuits" findings are C2.
- C3 — Improvement recommended: not legally required, but advisable. Plastic enclosure or no SPD typically scores C3.
- FI — Further investigation: something the inspector couldn't determine without further testing — often a sign of unrecorded historic alterations.
If your report has any C1s or C2s on the consumer unit itself, an upgrade is the cleanest fix. Read our full EICR guide for landlords for the legal context.
Recent Customers
"Absolutely brilliant electrician. Always on time, tidy, good price, and top-quality work. Highly recommend."
Google Review
"I have used Lilliput electrical for about 11 years. Tim wired my kitchen extension, and put in a consumer unit when I moved into my home. More recently he has carried out a number of smaller jobs including moving a socket and advising about and fitting lighting. He is always courteous and very helpful. This firm is very trustworthy and the work is tidily completed. I have no hesitation in recommending them as genuinely no job is too big or too small."
Google Review
"Fantastic job from Tim & the team. Would highly recommend."
Google Review
Find Us — Unit 45 Balena Close, Poole BH17 7DY
Our base in Creekmoor is 5 minutes from the A35, 10 minutes from Poole Quay, and within 15 minutes of every BH postcode we cover.
Frequently Asked Questions
A standard domestic consumer unit upgrade in Poole starts from £450 — that includes materials, labour, full testing, the new RCBO-protected board, and your NICEIC certificate. Larger boards (10-way / 14-way), three-phase upgrades, or installations that need rewiring of poor existing tails can run higher, typically £600–£1,200. We give you a fixed price after a free survey, so there are no surprises on completion.
A "fuse box" is the older terminology — a board with rewireable fuses or cartridge fuses that protect circuits from overcurrent. A modern "consumer unit" replaces those fuses with miniature circuit breakers (MCBs) and adds residual current devices (RCDs) or RCBOs that disconnect the circuit within milliseconds when they detect an earth fault. The current 18th Edition wiring regulations (BS 7671) require RCD protection on virtually every domestic circuit. If your board still has rewireable fuses, it predates 1990 and is almost certainly non-compliant.
There's no law that forces you to upgrade purely because your board is old. However: if you're a landlord, your EICR (every 5 years for rented properties) will record any non-compliance as a Code C2 (potentially dangerous) or C3 (improvement recommended) — you have 28 days to fix C2 issues to keep the property legally lettable. If you're selling your home, a buyer's surveyor will flag an old board, and that often becomes a price-renegotiation point. And if you're adding any major circuit (EV charger, electric shower, kitchen extension), the new circuit must be on a compliant board.
A straightforward swap is a one-day job — typically 4–6 hours from isolation to re-energisation. We arrive in the morning, isolate the supply at the cutout, fit the new board, terminate every circuit, and run the full test schedule (continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth fault loop impedance, RCD trip times) before energising. You get power back the same day. More complex jobs — three-phase, properties with shared meter cupboards, or boards with a lot of historic re-routing — sometimes need a second day.
Yes — every consumer unit upgrade we do includes a full Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) issued under our NICEIC registration. We also notify Building Control via the NICEIC competent person scheme, which is required for "notifiable" work like board changes. You receive the certificate by email within a few days, and Building Control gets their copy automatically. You'll need this for any future EICR, mortgage application, or sale.
Yes — Sandbanks, Canford Cliffs, Lilliput, Branksome and Parkstone are all under 12 minutes from our Poole base in Creekmoor (BH17 7DY). We do a lot of board upgrades in BH13 and BH14 in particular — many properties there have older split-load boards that pre-date the 17th Edition and don't meet current RCD coverage requirements. Same fixed pricing applies regardless of which side of the harbour you're on.
Across Dorset the typical price band for a domestic RCBO consumer unit upgrade is £450–£1,200 fully fitted, tested and certified. The variables that move the price are: number of circuits (6-way vs 10-way vs 14-way), whether the existing tails and earthing meet current standards (sometimes the meter tails need replacing too), whether AFDDs (arc fault detection devices) are specified, and whether the board needs surge protection (SPD). We give a fixed quote after a 15-minute survey — no estimates.