Hi,
As per an earlier thread, I have got two shower pumps in my loft which are connected to a standard double 13amp socket. The pumps are rated at 2.1A and 2.4 A respectively.
I talked previously about putting an RCD faceplate on this socket to get round the fact that the socket is fed from a circuit that is not RCD protected.
But I have since realised that the circuit this loft socket is fed from is the immersion heater circuit (via an FCU in the airing cupboard that is spurred off the FCU for the immersion heater). This immersion circuit has a 15amp fuse and so, in theory at least, running the immersion heater and the two showers together would blow the fuse.
So, I now plan to run a new feed up into the loft by spurring off one of the sockets on the upstairs ring main. The bedroom below the loft hatch has two sockets in a stud wall and it looks like it should be fairly easy to run some 2.5mm T+E from the back of one of the bedroom sockets, up through the stud work and into the loft.
Questions that I hope you guys can answer please:
1. Am I right in saying no conduit/trunking is needed in the wall, so long as I run straight up from the socket?
2. And no conduit is needed in the loft - I can just clip to the rafters or joists?
3. The current installation has the pumps plugged into normal 13amp sockets plus an FCU in the airing cupboard, so it is possibly to kill power to the shower pumps without going into the loft. My proposed installation will just have the shower pumps plugged into the 13amp sockets which will be spurred directly off the upstairs ring with no FCU. So my only way to quickly kill power to the pumps is via the consumer unit. Is that a problem?
4. If an FCU is required, does it have to go in the bedroom or in the loft?
5. I am aware that you can only run one spur off any one existing socket. There is no existing spur on the bedroom socket that I plan to use. However, there is a length of earth cable running from this bedroom socket, up inside the wall, into the loft, and then (as far as I can see) connecting up to the bathroom lighting (it's a 1960s house where the original lighting circuits had/have no earth). Leaving aside the rights or wrongs of that, is it still ok for me to run my spur from that bedroom socket? Or does the presence of the earth wire from that socket to the loft mean my spurring allocation for that socket is already used up?
6. Anything else I need to watch out for?
Cheers,
Dave.
As per an earlier thread, I have got two shower pumps in my loft which are connected to a standard double 13amp socket. The pumps are rated at 2.1A and 2.4 A respectively.
I talked previously about putting an RCD faceplate on this socket to get round the fact that the socket is fed from a circuit that is not RCD protected.
But I have since realised that the circuit this loft socket is fed from is the immersion heater circuit (via an FCU in the airing cupboard that is spurred off the FCU for the immersion heater). This immersion circuit has a 15amp fuse and so, in theory at least, running the immersion heater and the two showers together would blow the fuse.
So, I now plan to run a new feed up into the loft by spurring off one of the sockets on the upstairs ring main. The bedroom below the loft hatch has two sockets in a stud wall and it looks like it should be fairly easy to run some 2.5mm T+E from the back of one of the bedroom sockets, up through the stud work and into the loft.
Questions that I hope you guys can answer please:
1. Am I right in saying no conduit/trunking is needed in the wall, so long as I run straight up from the socket?
2. And no conduit is needed in the loft - I can just clip to the rafters or joists?
3. The current installation has the pumps plugged into normal 13amp sockets plus an FCU in the airing cupboard, so it is possibly to kill power to the shower pumps without going into the loft. My proposed installation will just have the shower pumps plugged into the 13amp sockets which will be spurred directly off the upstairs ring with no FCU. So my only way to quickly kill power to the pumps is via the consumer unit. Is that a problem?
4. If an FCU is required, does it have to go in the bedroom or in the loft?
5. I am aware that you can only run one spur off any one existing socket. There is no existing spur on the bedroom socket that I plan to use. However, there is a length of earth cable running from this bedroom socket, up inside the wall, into the loft, and then (as far as I can see) connecting up to the bathroom lighting (it's a 1960s house where the original lighting circuits had/have no earth). Leaving aside the rights or wrongs of that, is it still ok for me to run my spur from that bedroom socket? Or does the presence of the earth wire from that socket to the loft mean my spurring allocation for that socket is already used up?
6. Anything else I need to watch out for?
Cheers,
Dave.