Why Upgrading Your Electrical Switchboards Is A Good Choice

Is it time to upgrade your switchboards?

Your switchboard could need to be updated, especially if its 30 years or older.

About 40% of electrical problems comprise of switchboards issues, cables and components burning out and failing. Older switchboards reliability is very low and the biggest issue is a lot of them are asbestos backing boards so the components cannot be replaced with modern switchgear because that would involve drilling into the asbestos backing boards. The only option is to replace the old components with the same. Although they still make the old components they can be very expensive as they do not make many of them anymore. For example, a three-phase back wired mains switch that is used in these old switchboards are more than $200 just for the switch. It can get very expensive to try and maintain one of the theses old boards.

Upgrading Your Switchboard

Upgrading your switchboard before you have any issues is a good idea. In regards to safety, the old fuse boards don’t even compare to the safety of new switchboards. They are very different from how they go about providing protection. Old fuse boards have fuses and a fuse will blow if you exceed the amount of power (current) that the fuse can take. During this process the fuse will heat up, that heat is then transferred on to the fuse holder and the cable that it connects to. The heating up causes damage to the cable and components at the fuse board.

Switchboards & Accessories