Replacing a broken electric shower

skipster75

I am looking to replace my electric shower and am a bit concerned over some of the advice received.
Firstly he said he couldn\\\'t tell the wire size. Stating that he would go and check the BS number and come back to me - I looked for this number and can\\\'t find anything on the wire to verify! He has now come back and said that our local building control have confirmed to him that he can only replace this with 10mm?!? He also said we would need an RCD put in. I am sure we have a RCD already, although it is in line with the other trip switches and not a separate box....Is this guy trying it on??

My 2nd opinion electrician had a look and agreed that we have an RCD and that it is likely to be 6mm and therefore we can only replace with 8.5kw shower (which is fine for our usage)

Steve · Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 3:28 pm Post Subject:

6mm is allowed for showers below 9.5kw, however most decent electricians will only fit 10mm on new shower circuits now, regardless of the rating.

As RCD is an RCD, whether its on a plug top, on a socket outlet, inside your consumer unit (with trip switches) or elsewhere. They all do the same thing. Its also worth noting showers aren't required to be RCD protected (until the 17th edition comes out), but again, its one of those things most electricians do anyway.

ricicle · Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 4:15 pm Post Subject:

Crafty wrote:

Its also worth noting showers aren't required to be RCD protected (until the 17th edition comes out), but again, its one of those things most electricians do anyway.

But most manufacturers say they should be fitted and the regulations say equipment must be fitted in accordance with manufacturers instructions

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Adam_151 · Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 7:25 pm Post Subject:

ricicle wrote:

But most manufacturers say they should be fitted and the regulations say equipment must be fitted in accordance with manufacturers instructions

What happens if you have a low wattage piece of kit and the instructions tell you to feed it via an fcu on the nearest RFC and you don't have any RFCs available, in the real world I'd fit the FCU to a socket radial that is available. Its like... where do you draw the line?