Recent content by Steven Prentice

Tripping the circuit often happens - older lights were bad for that (the loose wire in the light flopped about, touched the other and without the resistance in between cause a short circuit and pop). Did you take all the lights out all at once or was it one out at a time? It is possible that the...

Coming back to this thread for a look, seam to have created a discussion over lighting circuits.... as far as the cable and consumer units are concerned they are just circuits with thinner or thicker wires and larger or smaller protective device ratings. Mentioned earlier, I wouldn't put a...

A bit late responding whoops. Garage is external, no other heating but it needs none unless I want to do stuff in there. Like I said just a thought and wondered if it could be done or why not. Aim would be the background heat, and then fan heater on after if necessary (I have a jumper, probably...

This was just some mild musings. Thought I'd ask the question see if there is someone out here who knows these things If I buried 50m of garden hose under the lawn, say 1m deep (hand dig so not too deep, 25m garden so up and down once), blew air through it with a fan (or extracted air through...

No reason why not either way if you understand what you are asking off the house wiring. If you are not changing the size of the protection in the consumer unit and keeping the wiring sze the same throughout the circuit you will be fne either way. Some pedant will be along sometime to tell me I...

Thanks. Normally when I want to ask a question the answer is rarely "Here is a handy link for you", but sometimes I don't ask the correct question and miss an answer. Yup. I could go with a spreadsheet, meter readings, and a thermometer to work out how much energy my house is using and for what...

Which is my thinking, if you can fill in boxes online with the info, then anyone -should- be able to survey their house well enough to produce a credible online result.. and if the home owner only needs to fill in simple boxes then surely the calculations behind that can be simplified. No doubt...

Just been looking through the forum for info about Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and SAP wondering how they are calculated. In my mind it could be a spreadsheet almost with tick boxes to get the score "Does it have low energy Light bulbs" - Tick - One point, "Does it have 100mm...

I can see this going around and around but never mind. Yes and also a big difference between average demand and average maximum demand... which is the values quoted above, and what the system designs are based on. I suspect you are looking for a 'discussion' for the sake of a discussion.

My apologies, I had got the discussion all wrong, I thought it was whether the OP would be able to have a larger fuse and then onto how the system was designed a bit. That's OK though, 2A average current and say, 25 houses in the street per phase, I guess the Electricity company only needs a 50A...

However the system is designed to supply your maximum, what is it when you jump into your 10kW power shower?

Just for the point of the discussion. If I read the report correctly that 2kW (8.3A? the system was mostly installed many years ago, at 240V) is the maximum demand calculated for all the houses. As you use a smaller number of houses then the average maximum demand per house increases (bigger...

Yes, there will be a 'big fuse' in the substation supplying you and your neighbours. Whether it is a fuse or circuit breaker isn't so relevant here, it's purpose is to protect the cables in the street. Increasing one fuse in one house in a street of 50 and that single house using more is...

Probably John, yes, the actual real world demand is probably a lot less than 20A, but somewhere in the back of my head that figure is the design value for the system. To an extent the price concious will alter their behaviour to the cheapest hour, however there will always be peaks and troughs...

60A Supply.... I am sure I read this week that they electrical networks were designed on an average of 20A per house, something like that.. but big issues coming up if we all want to plug our electric cars in on Good Friday after work, a top up charge ready for an Easter get-away. Partly the...