My personal view is that what you are saying is totally sensible/practical. However, a good few people seem to interpret the regs as requiring lighting to be split across two or more circuits (in terms of both over-current and residual current protection).
... and that was obviously also my point - that if one has only one lighting circuit, one can be plunged into darkness whilst cooking, through no fault of the cooker or, indeed, through no fault of anything other than that one lighting circuit itself.
I don't remember - do they believe a single lighting circuit should be split or have they just commented on the fitting of a single RCD or poor separation of circuits when two RCDs are fitted?
I don't remember for sure, either - but since they seem to think that the reason a single-RCD CU being non-compliant is that "a single fault can plunge the house into darkness", I would expect them to probably feel that a single lighting circuit was also non-compliant. Let's face it, if you have suddenly been plunged into darkness whilst cooking or showering, the situation is (and any dangers are) exactly the same whether that has come about through a fault in the cooker, immersion heater or lighting circuit!
Yes, but that means ANY fault, however trivial switching off everything.
I disagree. If cooking or showering and the appliance goes bang, it is better - frightwise - if the lights don't also go out.
You would have to ask 'them'!
I don't really think there is much of a distinction. Certainly in terms of RCD trips (rather than faults resulting in large over-currents), the appliance one is using (cooker, shower or whatever) may well not 'go bang'. The first thing one will be aware of (and frightened by) will often be the lights going out - and that will be exactly the same regardless of what had caused the lights to go out.
If I were rewiring my house from scratch today, I would split the lighting circuits such that in the event of a circuit failure, there would still be lights illuminated on any given floor.
Fair enough - but that's a 'house'. What about my daughter's flat, with just three rooms (on one floor!), the doors to which all open into the 'entrance hall' within a metre of two of one another. Would you split that flat into more than one lighting circuit?
You've not been reading
My daughter's flat does, indeed, have three separate lighting circuits for her three rooms (one on an RCBO, the other two on different RCDs), so I can but presume that 'one circuit per room' is exactly what they did!Fair enough. I doubt that amount of cable would be much of an issue, but the number of 'ways' required in the CU might. Assuming that the cooker and immersion (and electric shower, if there were one) had their own circuits, would you have just one sockets circuit, or maybe one for the 'kitchen corner' of the kitchen/diner/living room plus one other sockets circuit for 'the rest'. Assuming the latter, you would already be up to 6 or 7 circuits. Do I take it that you would have two RCDs, or would you put one of the lighting circuits on an RCBO, with everything else on one RCD?
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