Mains socket: integrated kitchen appliances.

Joined
23 Mar 2019
Messages
100
Reaction score
8
Country
United Kingdom
I’m having my kitchen extended/refurbished and I had an electrician round the other day;..he had a look at the wiring changes/upgrades required.


He reckons that free-standing ‘undercounter’ kitchen appliances (dishwasher, fridge etc) can utilize a rear mains socket, but an ‘integrated’ floor standing kitchen appliance cannot utilize said mains socket. He said the floor-standing 'integrated' appliance must be plugged into a socket that is exterior to the ‘integrated’ appliance enclosure.

Is that info kosher? :unsure:

For what it’s worth he works mainly for a conservatory/roofing firm and he said he doesn’t really do much ‘kitchen’ work.
 
Sponsored Links
Thanks for the swift reply :);..Sorry for being a bit vague;..by ‘exterior’ I meant not inside the space under the kitchen worktop that is exclusively occupied by said appliance. Hope I’m making sense.
 
Sponsored Links
I wonder if he was thinking that it is useful to be isolate power before pulling the appliance out.

For example, if your tumble drier or fridge catches fire, or if your dishwasher needs repair inside the door where a lot of electrical connections are found, or if you are a person who likes to isolate electrical devices that are not in use.

IMO the most convenient way to do that is to have a switch or SFCU mounted on the wall above worktop level.

There is a red herring about using both an FCU and a fused plug for a kitchen appliance. In practice, appliance fuses blow approximately never, so this is not a significant problem.
 
I just wondered if he meant exterior was somewhere visible above the units.
No, ...he didn’t say anything about the socket being visible above the appliance;...but he was adamant that it had to be somewhere instantly accessible and that a socket on the wall immediately to the rear of the integrated floor-standing appliance wasn’t allowed.

I have a ‘free-standing’ undercounter dishwasher, and a ‘fully integrated’ floor standing fridge at the moment and both appliances are powered by their own socket immediately to the rear of said appliance.

Accessing the rear of either appliance isn’t particularly difficult,...although I’d agree that access to the socket is not instant. Both appliances slide out of their enclosure with ease. The ‘fully integrated’ floor standing fridge is just like a normal fridge apart from it having a kitchen cabinet door screwed to the front of it and a clip on fascia.

I’d prefer to keep the sockets as they are rather than compromise the internal space inside adjacent kitchen cabinets;...albeit that I won’t have the immediacy of being able to switch the appliance off within seconds of course.
 
it had to be somewhere instantly accessible

that suggests he was thinking of emergency isolation. For example if you had a machine tool in a workshop, or a deep fat fryer in a kitchen.

If you needed emergency isolation, it would have to be immediately visible and accessible, so putting it in a cupboard and hiding it behind piles of tins and cornflake packets would not do.

But it is not compulsory for domestic kitchen appliances. Perhaps he has worked in commercial kitchens or workshops where it might be insisted on as a safety measure.

it is, however, my preference to have visible isolators.
 
For example, if your tumble drier or fridge catches fire ....
That one is often cited but, to be honest, if an appliance is already 'on fire', then isolating the electricity supply to it will probably not make much difference.
... or if you are a person who likes to isolate electrical devices that are not in use. ... IMO the most convenient way to do that is to have a switch or SFCU mounted on the wall above worktop level.
Indeed. I have no problem with those people who, for whatever reason, prefer to have an isolator/emergency switch in the vicinity. However, as I frequently observe, such switches/SFCUs/whatever are often located immediately above the appliance they serve - which, in my opinion, is not too clever if one is contemplating scenarios of 'appliances in flames' or 'appliances whose cases have become live' - so my advice to those who want such switches is always "fairly close, but not too close, to the appliance they serve"!

Kind Regards, John
 
That one is often cited but, to be honest, if an appliance is already 'on fire', then isolating the electricity supply to it will probably not make much difference.
unless you wanted to try to put out the fire with water.
 
unless you wanted to try to put out the fire with water.
Nothing is foolproof :)

However, given the high and increasing prevalence of RCDs, squirting water onto electrical parts of an appliance (probably easier said than done, unless the case has 'melted'!) would probably be a fairly effective way of achieving electrical isolation of the appliance!

Kind Regards, John
 

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Sponsored Links
Back
Top