63A main panel fuse blows if power outage occurs

I have to admit, a one off would indeed seem to back that up, but tonight, the outage was a scheduled maintenance update, there's a new housing estate being built across the road from their estate, and there was a 11Kv overhead passing over a line of new houses, so they've been removing the overhead and replacing it with underground cables for a span of about 200 metres, so not a fault as such, just no way to switch their estate to an alternate incoming feed for the duration of the work, but when it came back on, it took 2 main fuses out in quick succession before it stayed on, I got them a box of 10 after the last time this happened, as they didn't have any spares there, my daughter was on her way home at the time so doesn't know if it was a case of instant blow, or a few seconds after it came back on, but she's obviously concerned that there's something untoward going on

Now it's stayed back on, it will most likely stay that way until the next time they get a cut that affects their area, would the distance from a sub station have any influence on this, there's a (probably) 11Kv to low voltage cabinet not far from the house, they're on an estate, so if it was a weird external issue, I'd have expected a number of houses to be affected by something like this.

That's worth a try, and it could be a way forward, there's not a lot of surge loads as such in the house, a fridge and a freezer would be the only definite loads when the power comes back on, apart from that, the remaining loads would all be low value, TV's, chargers, computers, stuff like that, so I will suggest that route for the future, and see if it makes any difference, this is the first time where it's taken out more than one fuse, previous times, it's stayed on when the blown fuse is replaced.

That will be the plan, and I'm going to see who it was that said about the smart meter, in that I'm not sure if it wasn't an ESB emergency response unit that said it, if that's the case, I don't know how we set about finding out more.

Not sure, and I will ask, that's a valid thought, a long time ago now, we were on the wrong transformer here, and a heavy load dropped our supply to somewhere around 180 Volts, they put a chart recorder in, and we were able to get it to record as such, they had to move a whole block of 15 houses on to a different transformer, and that solved the problems for us, we were the end of that particuar line, I hadn't actually thought of voltage drop issues, Thanks for that.

No way I can check, it's the screw in fuse holder with a close to make after fitting the fuse, we've got several in panels here, and I've never known an issue with them, but at this stage, anything is possible, so all we can do to try and find a solution is literally check everything, and our REC is going to have a quiet chat with a friend in ESB to see if there's any issues they are aware of, there's been nothing in their notes system that normally lets them know about ongoing issues, he's as confused as I am with this one, and I'd trust his awareness of 'issues', so all we can do for now is test and see what shows up.

it is the main switchfuse, and yes, all breakers were off, and there's no other boards fed separately, the one panel controls everything in the house, so in theory, there was no load as such when the fuse was connected, that's what's so confusing, but until we can do some specific testing, we're in the dark on this issue.

the generator is here, and we're 3 phase, this is happening at the daughter's house in Duleek, only an absolutely bog standard single phase residential system, and the present scenario is that the third fuse on Friday got them back on line, but it's blown one since, on Sunday, nothing since. Our REC is coming out to have a close look next week, that's his first available slot, and we're going to have a much closer look at everything, including rattling the cables to the smart meter, and if it tests good, then we'll have to get ESB involved on the basis of the rest of it tests good, and see what they have to say, and take it from there.

Well, interesting is not even close, I've just had a very thought provoking call from the REC, and he's been talking to a friend of his that's working for ESB, and as a result of that conversation, he's telling me that at the moment, there's no point him coming out to have a look at the house, as he won't find a fault, it seems that there is a known issue with Smart meters, and ESB are replacing significant numbers of smart meters because they are causing exactly the sort of problem that is happening at my daughter's, it's some sort of very strange issue internal to the meter and the components inside it, he didn't get the full exact story, but it is a known issue which has resulted in ESB having to change to a new supplier in an attempt to get away from the problem.

Ir will have to be addressed by ESB, so the next move will be to ring ESB networks, and get them out to test the meter, and from the description given, it is faulty and will need to be replaced, and as my daughter is on the vulnerable customer list, it should happen quite quickly, so that's a phone call tomorrow morning for one or other of us, and I will report back when we get a result one way or the other.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, it's certainly going to be an interesting end result if it is indeed the meter that's the issue, the comment made by his contact was 'avoid smart meters for now if at all possible', which is thought provoking, I don't have to worry for a while, we're 3 phase, and apparently there is no such thing as a smart meter for 3 phase at the moment, which suits me quite nicely, we're on nightsaver, which suits our recent upgrade, we've a new (used) EV that gets charged overnight when it needs it, so staying with nightsaver for now is ideal, as it won't charge fully in four hours.

Apparently, it is taking out the CU fuse, and yes, it's caused a lot of confusion, I too would have expected the protect fuse to be the one that goes, apparently not, and it's not a case of the REC not wanting to come out, so I think a call to them, and we'll see what happens.