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I sometimes wonder if each future edition of BS 7671 is going to reduce the minimum distance by 0.5 m until it’s eventually harmonised to „outside zones“.

Is it definitely a ring and not a 4 mm2 radial?

I thought the FCUs were going into the upper kitchen units to be hidden, that‘s why the cables don‘t go all the way to the ceiling. The T&E might be dark grey and just looks black in the pictures because of poor lighting. Polish YDYp is always white as far as I know.

All continental European countries that I‘m aware of allow sockets outside of the usual zones 0-2 surrounding baths and showers. 30 mA RCD protection is mandatory. Shaver sockets with isolation transformers pretty much disappeared when the regs were changed, in Germany and Austria back in the 70s.

How about adding two sockets just for the lights?

If the light works you‘ve got a switched live and a neutral coming in and obe of each going to the next light. Perfectly fine. All you need to do is measure whether red is actually the switch line, and if it is, connect the new light as you suggested. If you find the colours are the wrong way...

I spend a lot of time in a country where 13 A radials are the norm. The only time I‘ve ever seen one of then overloaded was with multiple electric heaters plugged into one circuit. Had it been one circuit per room everything would have been fine but this circuit supplied two bedrooms...

1) You mean all sockets have two T&E cables and those two only have one each? That would likely suggest that they‘re unfused spurs and there’s junction boxes under the floor. They should be replaced with maintenance-free junction boxes. 2) This could probably be rectified by running 6 mm2 from...

Does the current light work? How many lights are there in the room? I can see two likely scenarios. Either someone connected the light wrong or the wires in the ceiling are connected the wrong way round somewhere. Use the multimeter on Volts AC and measure from red and black to earth while the...

The fusing current of a BS1362 fuse is 1.9*In, i.e. 38 A for the 20 A one. The fusing current of a B-curve MCB is 1.45*In or 46.4 A for a B32. So in case of an overload it’s likely that the fuse blows first - provided this plug is the only load on the circuit. In case of a short, the MCB is most...

Yes, two radials would certainly be an option, although in all likelyhood oversized for the expected demand. They‘d probably use less cable than a ring.

So what size MCB is this fed from? If smaller than 32 A you’re good to go, if not, you need to convert this to a fused spur. I think you could even have the FCU at the end of the feed, i.e. where the socket is now. Move the socket to the right, fit a single back box with an FCU where the feed...

Yes, I would.

The beauty of a radial is that you don’t have to jump from socket to socket but can branch out in multiple directions, even from the CU. In this case I‘d probably run one cable for the hall sockets and another to the lounge. That means the lengths don‘t simply add up, it’s the length of the...

Since there‘s two loads it would either have to be a radial circuit (16 or 20 A MCB in the consumer unit) or wired from a fused connection unit. You can’t have more than one double socket on an unfused 2.5 mm2 spur from a ring.

There’s no 13 A plug fuses on the continent but 13 A MCBs. No 15 A fuses either, the standard changed to 16 A back in the 1950s. 13 A MCBs aren‘t particularly common in most countries but they do exist. Said oven is most likely to be connected to a 16 A circuit on the continent.

Are you sure the spotlights are mains voltage? I wouldn't consider it impossible that some 230 V LED lamps do strange things when connected to 12 V.

The chandelier sounds like it's a problem common to all three lamps, so check the wiring. With the wall light it could be lamp, lamp holder or wiring. Is that BC or ES/SES? If ES it could well be a loose centre contact. In that case turn off power at the consumer unit and carefully bend up the...

A Schuko socket needs to be protected by a 16 A or smaller fuse or MCB though, as there’s no fuse in the plug. So assuming the current socket is on a 32 A ring the Schuko would need to be connected via an FCU.

True. My girlfriend had several Philips LED lamps that flickered for quite some time until they failed completely.