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When you're trying to work out how a DIYer has bridged the ring or connected a ring within a ring or some other such lash-up, it's a right royal PITA.
Adding two spur sockets to Ring Final
- Thread starter Sard
- Start date
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Yes I agree... But they do all that on radials too.
DIYers expect rings and if they don't find it they create some form of it, either within the radial or between 2 radials.
Oh and it's not only DIYers that make horrendous cock-ups, I'm finding new builds are disgusting. In one earlier this year, all RCBO, contacts between 3 of the 4 ring circuits. That only came to light when I tried to isolate a socket circuit and had to switch off 3.
The builders maintenance electricians were there for 3 days, followed by the board fixers, plasterers & painters, followed by carpet fitters.
The main point everyone misses - while recounting their personal reasons for loving rings and what appliances will fit in the capacity - is that:
With 30A BS3036 fuses, ring finals were/are a good idea; 6mm² T&E would be required for a 30A BS3036 radial, (or two x 2.5mm² in parallel - or a ring).
Since the introduction of MCBs, the regulation has not been updated and rings are still regulated for 3036 fuses.
40A MCBs could easily be allowed for a standard ring giving even more capacity that would not be used.
With 30A BS3036 fuses, ring finals were/are a good idea; 6mm² T&E would be required for a 30A BS3036 radial, (or two x 2.5mm² in parallel - or a ring).
Since the introduction of MCBs, the regulation has not been updated and rings are still regulated for 3036 fuses.
40A MCBs could easily be allowed for a standard ring giving even more capacity that would not be used.
It does - but, on the other hand, one could have two 25A radials (assuming Method C).
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One could, but how many homes are installed using Method C?
So What?
It doesn't change the fact that rings still work as designed and there are many millions of them in service trouble free for decades.
Only a couple of years back I converted 4x 16A radials to 2rings to allow me to increase lighting load by 50%
Not if your house doesn't have wooden walls... unless I'm not up to date on the methods.
Indeed, one would need to do that to make me more comfortable.
Quite - heading for the situation in which each and every socket would be on its own dedicated circuit - but I find it hard to see that any perceived advantages would outweigh the installation and environmental) costs of such an approach (as compared with a smaller number of higher-current circuits).
Designers would, of course, benefit from "one socket per circuit", since once there is more than one socket, they cannot "design properly", since they have no crystal ball that tells them how the circuit might be loaded after installation!
Kind Regards, John
I'm not sure why you say that. Apart from anything else, as I've said my personal view about radials vs.rings is very 'neutral', so I'm not sure how I could 'negate' that!
I don't understand that statement. For a start, as I've said, I personally don't like 20A (let alone 16A) radials, so I would replace one 32A ring with one 32A radial. My 'discomfort is nothing to do with the type of circuit (ring or radial) but, rather, about the total capacity of a circuit which has multiple sockets - so I'm happy with any sort of 32A circuit.
Even if one wanted to use 20A (or even 16A) radials, one would only need (in terms of 'total capacity') two to replace a 32A ring - and, as I've said, the amount of installation effort would be the same (as a ri g) and the amount of copper use could be less, the only apparent difference being the need for one extra MCB/RCBO.
As I just wrote to plugwash, he (and to some extent you) are talking of moving in the direction of 'one socket per circuit' - which, although it would be a "designer's dream" has plenty of downsides.
Kind Regards, John
True, albeit 25A MCBs/RCBOs are often hard to find.
However, as I've said, 20A radials could presumably use 1.5mm² cable and, indeed, 16A radials could use 1.0mm² cable if that were 'allowed' for a 'power' circuit - whereas a 25A circuit would need 2.5mm² cable (in all cases assuming Method C) - which some might regard as a relevant consideration.
Kind Regards, John
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I'm surprised because actually I haven't come across the same abuse on a radial.
The worst I had was a radial with branches off left, right & centre but that was no biggie.
I'm also surprised, since it's not easy to think of many ways is which someone might 'abuse' a radial. I suppose they might run a multi-socket branch in 2.5mm² cable from a 4mm² 32A radial (just as they could do with an unfused spur from a ring). I also suppose that it's just about conceivable that (as Sunray seemed to be suggesting), they think that two radials are a 'broken ring' and therefore connect them together, but that would seem very unlikley. Beyond that, I can't really think of anything.
Yes, that's far from unknown but, provided all the cables are suitable, there's nothing theoretically 'wrong' with that.
Kind Regards, John
Amendment 2 allows this.
The useless 'power vs lighting' shambles is gone, minimum size for any circuit is 1.0mm² copper.
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