In the second offering of this five-part special, Kelly Vincent gives us her views on Hager UK’s Design30.
The Design30 has several features to help with installation. The cable protector plate provides an enhanced method for bringing cables into the rear of the consumer unit. Multiple fixing points are available to enable easy and accurate installation whether fitting in new or existing buildings. Also, grommet strips are included with every consumer unit to provide a safe edge for cable entry with any knock out.
Kelly’s thoughts:
“There’s plenty of room inside to comfortably fit a fully loaded board, which means less battling with the cables when sizing up the board ready for installation. There is a selection of knockouts on the top and rear of the board, square knockouts along the top to accommodate trunking sizes but if you’re not using trunking and wanted to use IP rated glands you would have to drill out new holes yourself. The board came with a fantastic little rear knockout protector plate, which clicks into place easily and 
protects the cables against the sharp edges of the knock out.
The cable clamp was my favourite part of the board, it secures the tails in place once they’re in the main switch, stops the main switch from sliding over and means no stress on it either which can cause damage.
There are only two neutral bars which means, in the unfortunate event that there is an earth fault on a circuit and remedial work is to be continued, this circuit cannot be wired in. You can buy additional neutral bars for this to work – it’s just remembering to keep them in stock in your van – just in case!
All in all, lovely to look at and easy to use, widely available parts and comes with great little accessories. I would have liked to have seen some knockouts on the sides, but then it wouldn’t look as pretty as it does if it did!”
