Do I need fuse upgrades?

Hi guys,

A warning, I know none of the correct terms for things and the ones I include are as a result of searching posts back to November 2008 in this forum and googling for the terms and images of the terms. Apologies in advance!

Last weekend we had a fuse blow, I only noticed it because I heard the kettle quieten down and I knew it hadn't finished boiling. I went out to the fusebox, turned off the mains and checked each fuse in turn. Our house was built in the late 50's and we have a really old style switchboard with what I believe are ceramic? rewireable fuses.

Originally, I'm from the UK and have been used to RCD type switches in my fusebox, although I've been here >10 years, this was the first time I'd been exposed to this style of fuse. On the board next to the fuse I saw 15A written down and popped off to get some more fuse wire to replace it.

The replacement worked fine and all is well...

My question I suppose is how much should a single 15A fuse power? It turns out that this single fuse supplies:

3 GPOs in garage
2 GPOs in laundry
8-10 GPOs in Kitchen
4 GPOs in the living room

What's weird for the living room is it only provides supply to half the living room. The GPOs on the other side are on a different circuit.

Whilst searching these forums for suggestions, I came across this thread on electrical cable getting hot (http://www.renovateforum.com/showthread.php?t=76679). We have the same issue albeit on the circuit that supplies the other side of the lounge.

Also, given the huge number of outlets, at any one time, the single fuse might need to be supplying a washing machine, dishwasher, kettle, fridge, router, cordless phone, PC, laser printer, lights, mobile phone chargers.

I also came across this thread (http://www.renovateforum.com/showthread.php?t=74792) where the poster asked about max power points per circuit and a user called benja said it was dependent on the circuit breaker rating. How would I find what this is?

Would any of you think it worthwhile upgrading the switchboard / fuses to be of the MCB/RCD type? Is this an expensive job to perform?

Many thanks for your time and assistance and if something in this post makes no sense, please let me know and I'll try and explain a little better.


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