New fuse board in Bridgend, fitted and certified in a day.

Bridgend housing spans a century, and the fuse board tells you which era you are in almost immediately. The terraces near the town centre and the older stock around Litchard still throw up rewireable boards — the ones with actual fuse wire, or the cartridge type that replaced them. Those have no RCD protection at all, which means no automatic disconnection if someone puts a spade through a cable or an appliance develops a fault.

The 1980s and 90s stock is where the most common Bridgend job sits: a plastic consumer unit with a single RCD covering everything. It was compliant when it went in and it is not dangerous, but it has two problems. One fault anywhere takes out the whole house, including the freezer and the lights while you are trying to find the cause. And since 2016 the regulations have required non-combustible enclosures in domestic properties, which is why a plastic board under a wooden staircase now attracts a C3 on an EICR, and occasionally worse if it sits on an escape route.

The newer Broadlands and Brackla builds are usually fine, and Aled will tell you so rather than sell you a board you do not need. Where a replacement is genuinely warranted it is from £700 + VAT, and the upgrade to individual RCBOs — one device per circuit, so a fault takes out one thing rather than the house — is worth the small difference on nearly every job.