I am staying in an apartment and my power supply is single phase.

1) Lately, the fuse inside my unit burned. The electrician who came to do the repair told me the fuse was too small. It was 32A. He changed it to a bigger one, 63A. Is it the right move? (I am not sure is it called a fuse or ELCB or whatever.)

2) Again, I check the fuse beside the TNB meter outside the unit. The rating is only 32A. Is this rating for the fuse correct?

I called up the electrician, he told me both should be 63A. (but he forgot that the outside one was also changed by him some two years ago!)

3) When I touch the outside fuse beside the TNB meter, it was kind of hot, like touching the body of a car under a hot sun. Is it normal?

Appreciate some advices from you all.

Thanks.

Mudtrekker

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Added on February 22, 2010, 8:39 pmThanks, Lim,

You mentioned that 32A is already too big, now the guy have changed it to 63A. Don't you think it is too much? Will it cause fire to my apartment? I am actually very worried about this.

I need to clarify a bit. Actually my earlier fuse, or shall I call it ELCB, literally burned. It was not just that the fuse broken, but the whole casing like overheated, became black brown and melted. We smelled some burning smell for two days and finally we noticed that the ELCB was having problem.

My next question is, the ELCB was supposed to cut off current when it is overloaded. Why it didn't cut off but it itself melted?
(of caused not exactly melted. The material won't melt but is sort of became black brown, bulged and distorted, giving out burning smell. Normally there is one small capsule inside which we can take out to change, but that capsule cannot even be taken out now. The whole thing now become one single piece fused together).

My unit is having 3 air-cond, 1hp in the small room, 1.5hp in the big room and another 2hp in the hall. Normally we switch on the 2hp daytime, 2 or 3pm till say 9 or 10pm, at 25C, and not continuously. We will switch off for 1hr or so when it becomes too cold and on it back when it is hot.

As for the two small air-con, we normally switch it on 11 or 12 midnight till say 6 or 7am.

At one any time, we never or seldom have all the 3 air-cond switch on together.

We have two heaters too and only switch on when someone is bathing.

The ELCB burned when we have the 2hp & 1hp on and both heaters were running on that day.

Was it a bad move for the electrician to change the ELCB from 32A to 63A ?

Best Regards
Mudtrekker


This post has been edited by Mudtrekker: Feb 22 2010, 08:39 PM