Recent content by Ragnar_AT

Are there any wires hidden up inside the ceiling? With only one red, two blacks and one earth I can‘t see how the bathroom light would be affected. The most logical explanation (but by no means the only one) would be that red is the switched live, the blacks are neutrals and two permanent lives...

I‘d recommend using 4 mm2 rather than 2.5. Have you considered heat to prevent freezing?

I take that the two wires (brown and blue) are just short pieces, not inside the ceiling going somewhere else? In that case we can safely ignore them for the time being.

Having a mix of TT and TN won‘t work properly if the houses have a shared metal water or gas supply because then the TT earth will be connected to the PEN via the bonding and pipes.

Consumer units can be moved, extending the cable in a large junction box with a DIN rail (the same metal bit the devices in a consumer unit are clicked onto). A new CU could then be installed in a location more convenient for a new supply. Other than that I believe your options are limited.

In your example there‘s a back box and accessory at the point where the cables change direction. That’s the difference. It’s much more common to drop back down into the floor void from each socket though.

The point is you need a 3 phase head but single phase supplies for each unit should be fine. How many main fuses are there right now?

Spurs may originate at the source of the circuit (the MCB) but with no ring and only a spur it's a grey area and there's not really a reason to keep the B32. Anyone who extends a 2.5 mm2 radial protected by a B32 clearly isn't competent though, so I'm not sure we need to take that possibility...

Having a dedicated supply to each flat might save some legal headaches in the future though (keeping the private meters calibrated, etc.). Any non-payment debates would be between the electricity supplier and the tenant rather than between the tenant and you.

If it was a 2.5 feeding one double socket it would be the equivalent of an unfused spur. Otherwise the MCB would have to be changed.

The instructions don’t sound as if they were just translated. Fused connection units are only used in the UK and in countries that use UK sockets and wiring methods, so I assume they were specifically written for the UK.

The US did use aluminium in domestic installations for a while, from the 50s to the 70s. As far as I know that makes them the only place west of the Iron Curtain that user small-size Al conductors in times of peace (Germany did switch to 2.5 Al and up during WWII but stopped using it immediately...

In Germany 11 kW chargers are the norm as far as I know, Type 3 charge leads.

Wire colours are arbitrary decisions without any absolute rationale behind them. The only rational arguments are to use a colour combination for earth that can be recognised even by people with any known type of colour blindness and not to use colours that can be confused easily in poor lighting...

Why would you need a permanent live and switched live at the light anyway? Can you find the other end of the cables to the two lights, either at the switch or in the loft? If so, you can check how they're connected at the other end and possibly change that to neutral, switched live and earth...