solved this by getting a piece of copper rod of the right thickness from the physics lab, cutting off fuse-length pieces and using these to replace the fuses
Many years ago asked to attend a report of folks getting electric shocks from a metal gate post of a house, situated just outside a local town.
Gets there, confirms there is voltage on the gate post, and while stood talking to the customer I noticed that the meter disc was spinning at rather a high speed. Asked to customer if their leccy bill had been high recently - which they confirmed.
Switched everything off and started checking fuses in the consumer unit, found one of the ring mains, that should have a 30A fuse had a nail in it!!
Oh said the consumer the fuse kept blowing so we put the nail in to keep our fridge on
Of course being fair minded I gave them the choice, either I disconnect the faulty wiring and leave the rest of the power on and they get an electrician to sort the fault or I disconnect the whole house until the fault is sorted!!
