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Hex Luthor

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Hi to all.
Just a little about myself and the hope that some of you qualified electricians out there can help who is now
an out dated person.

My name is Adrian and I started my teen years as an apprentice for a telephone company, installing telephone exchanges,

which is where I gained my knowledge and respect of that silent and invisible killer known to everyone around the world as electricity.
Installing Busbars that carried thousands of amps down to general run of the mill Ring Mains, using equations that
have in my opinion stayed pretty much the same over my sixty years existence, only to be superseded by the way
these equations are implemented.
I stuck to this for nearly six years when one morning I woke up and decided to have a career change and for the next
thirty five plus years ventured forward as a qualified car mechanic.
Now medically retired, I have come in search for you guys who can lead me on the  right path without having to
blow myself up or set light to the house to gain upto date knowledge.
I guess someone will say ' Well your not qualified, so you shouldn't be doing that' but my way of thinking is that we've
all done things we're not qualified of and we're still here to tell the tale.
Please be patient with me and don't be too hard on me.

Thanks in advance...

 
Thanks for acknowledging me Andy.

Ok people this is the help I need.

My kitchen was rewired about eight years ago by qualified electricians who run a separate circuit for the kitchen ring main and oven/hob layout that we had at that time, as you do.

The feed from the consumer unit which is in the hallway to the kitchen has a run of about 12 meters fed through plastic surface mounted trunking.

The oven/hob was run in 10mm radial with a 40amp breaker and the ring main in 2.5mm with a 32amp breaker.

We have a severely Autistic son, now 27 years old and thought it would be in his best interests to teach him some home cooking life skills. For safety sake we decided to do away with the gas appliances and go all electric using induction technology for the hob and being pretty anal when it comes to overload protection decided to rip out the 10mm and use 16mm. I know some would say 10mm is fine taking into account power sharing and diversity of the 7000 watt hob and a 2000 watt oven but I like to think safety first and maximum power overload.

Now we haven't stopped there and thought it would be good to do the rest of the kitchen so have purchased a few extra electrical items like two fridge/freezers, to replace the old one, 2000w plinth heater, TV, tumble dryer, and a dish washer but that is on top of what we already had of a washing machine, iron, small halogen oven and a microwave. Now I'm thinking that in the winter if this lot is all running at the same time one of two things is going to happen, either the meter is going to spin off the wall or the 2.5mm cable, even though protected by a 32amp breaker, is going to have a melt down.

I've decided to use 20amp grid switches in the kitchen for the appliances on the the ring, nine in total, all run from the switch to the outlet in 2.5mm, this is on top of the four double wall sockets but I'm not sure about the feed from the consumer unit in the hallway to the grid switches. At the moment this would be in 2.5mm as a ring circuit which I'm really not happy about or should this/can this be run in 4mm as a ring from the consumer unit to the grid in the kitchen, bearing in mind from the grid to each of the appliances would be in 2.5mm.

Or as an alternative, is it possible to run a radial circuit in 16mm to a junction box in the kitchen where it could be separated for the appliances on the grid and the wall sockets.

I've read through the 17th edition but I must be missing or misinterpreting something.

If this makes sense to anyone, I would appreciate your advice.

Thanks.

Adrian...

 
way OTT, but its your house, so if you wanted to you could run a 16mm to a CU in the kitchen with 16 or 20a radials to your grid switch then to the socket

 
decided to rip out the 10mm and use 16mm


Totally unnecessary. 6mm² on a 32A would have been fine.

Same for the rest of it, no special treatment needed. Sticking it all on one ring would be fine, like probably most other homes in the UK.

You can do whatever you want with it though.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've read through the 17th edition but I must be missing or misinterpreting something.

If this makes sense to anyone, I would appreciate your advice.

Thanks.

Adrian...


Well, I'd certainly agree with the line I've highlighted red.

As for a lot of your other proposals.......    to be polite I would say they are a bit daft and overkill.

If you considered a hypothetical scenario where you were asking electricians to come and quote for your proposed work..

And assume they are all very competent and will be issuing you with all the correct certifications and paperwork...

Which includes signed declarations that the work is all compliant with BS7671 and electrically safe..

It is almost 99.99999999% sure that any electrician quoting to use the cables you propose would not get the job, due to being far too expensive.

Your proposed work can be done far more cost effectively and still be all electrically safe and compliant with current wiring regs.

But I'm not sure from reading your post if this is something you have done, or something you are going to do?

I guess it would be interesting to see your cable calculations to see how you arrived at the cable sizes suggested.

:C :popcorn  

 .

 
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