Electrical Intake Position Labels

As part of its electrical fire safety campaigning, the Electrical Safety Council has made a supply of labels and leaflets available to Fire & Rescue Services (FRS) across the UK. They warn householders not to store combustible materials close to the electrical intake equipment in their homes.

The label and leaflet will be offered to householders by FRS fire prevention officers during their home safety visits. The warning is particularly appropriate where, for example, the electrical intake equipment (service head, meter and fuse box) is in a cupboard which is used to store items such as coats, cleaning materials and other items that can be easily ignited. Fires in under-stair cupboards are particularly dangerous, as the means of escape from upstairs can be cut off.

This joint initiative with the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) followed an investigation by East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service into the cause of a fatal fire in Eastbourne, and then into a number of other fires in domestic and similar properties in their area, that had started in the vicinity of electrical intake equipment. The most likely cause of the fires was found to be resistance heating at deteriorating cable terminations and fuse contacts.

Whilst the number of such incidents is relatively small, some have caused real risk to life due to the nature and circumstances of how and when the fires occur (often at night when people are asleep, combined with the typical location of an electrical intake being near the means of escape from a property).

Whilst electrical equipment is designed to contain the thermal effects of faults, overheating can and does ignite materials that are in close proximity.

In collaboration with the electrical supply industry, the ESC has also offered to part-fund a supply of the labels for use by meter operators, on a voluntary basis, when visiting homes to replace electricity meters. This wider electrical fire safety campaign will run up to 2019, by which time the electricity meters in all 26 million homes in Great Britain are due to have been replaced under the smart meter programme.

Meter operators may start to use the labels before the smart meter programme gets underway – from 2012 onwards - as the warning is not specifically related to smart metering.