But don't you think there's a slight difference between a designation which is a general guide to what the circuit supplies, and a designation the precise definition of which determines whether or not something is compliant with a specified standard?
Mains smoke and heat detectors
- Thread starter foxhole
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Like it.
Other classic examples include PLUGS or POWER for socket circuits.
Or RING MAIN for socket circuits. Aside being technically incorrect, the average person wouldn't know what that is anyway.
I can just about stomach something like EXTENSION sockets, but it's not really as clear as it should be.
The most common spelling mistake is EMERSION.
Other annoying hand-written labels include going to the trouble of writing SPARE on unused fuseways. You then create a new circuit and find yourself searching for room to write.
Also annoying are people who can't understand the difference between capital letters and small letters, and you get something like 'LiGHTS', 'LightiNg', 'IMMersioN', 'socKets'.
This is the panel we inherited upon moving into our present home earlier this year; at least some breakers are reasonably well identified, but multiple ones with just "Lts & plugs" isn't too helpful:
And your pic shows the other one I was going to list but forgot;
Deliberately spelling words wrong...
I give you
LITE.
Deliberately spelling words wrong...
I give you
LITE.
I saw sokcets written several times on a poorly installed DB recently.
Back to the original question, does 1.0mm² comply for smoke alarms? Can they be put under the catagory of signalling circuits?
Back to the original question, does 1.0mm² comply for smoke alarms? Can they be put under the catagory of signalling circuits?
Yes.Aaagh! Sorry, I was thinking of 20A switches.
They are in the same grey area as these
which are also not BS 1363 accessories.
433.1.204 says "...may be supplied through...". Maybe JBs and switches are not "supplied"? Although only informative, A15 shows junction boxes, and who in their right mind would say that you can't use crimps because they are not BS 1363 accessories, so is it a stretch to say you can have suitably rated switches?
The end result is the same - AFAIC it is just a question of do you ignore them or list their use as a departure.
None of us can think of a reason.
But if the table was worded, and terms defined, so that there was no ambiguity, and no "interpretation" needed, it would be quite possible to comply with it, even if the reason why the csa had to be different made as much sense as the workshop manual for a mediæval Tibetan starship. It would then become a matter of professional judgement whether to comply, or whether you would be exercising reasonable skill and care in claiming a valid departure.
And obviously you couldn't tell from the picture, but on that same breaker which is marked as "N.E. bedroom" that's wrong since it's actually the northwest bedroom it feeds. Oh well...... I suspect breakers/circuits may have been rearranged since that was written anyway, since on a more serious note I've already had to address a multiwire circuit on one of those tandem breakers in which somebody had put both sides of the circuit on the same supply pole instead of opposite poles. But I digress....
I don't see how a cable which is just supplying power to them can be classed as a signaling circuit. And if you use 3-core to link between them, while one wire might be signaling the other two are still supplying power.
I hope they didn't use a permanent marker leaving you with vague scribbles you can't remove.
Because the devices are signalling the presence of combustion products?
Afraid so. I could always spray praint that panel to cover it all up, I suppose, or just stick a new chart over that mess when I'm done.
So if you had the smoke detectors linked into a flasher & relay combination to flash all the lights on & off in the house as a visual alarm, does that mean all of the lighting circuits (using the general sense of the term) then become signaling circuits?
Peter - I feel I should expand on this.
It's not that I think you an idiot, nor that I underestimate the difficulties in getting things worded properly, and I'm sure there are more egregious examples elsewhere in BS 7671, and other standards.
It is your attitude which concerns me. Given the ease with which so many of use here have been able, at very short notice, to blow any idea that the table is worded in a way which makes compliance obvious out of the water, for you to say that you don't think it is unacceptable is like a civil engineer saying he can't see anything unacceptable about a bridge which wobbles so much that nobody can use it.
You could always say that you can't do any work unless Susan is in her bedroom.
EitherSo if you had the smoke detectors linked into a flasher & relay combination to flash all the lights on & off in the house as a visual alarm, does that mean all of the lighting circuits (using the general sense of the term) then become signaling circuits?
or yes, as long as you write "signalling circuit" on the CU label(s) 3 times.
It's in the dictionaries now. Or "nite" is - I can't remember. I do know that one is in the latest Shorter Oxford, but not the other. Go figure.
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