Drawings for Building Notice

[Pat-UK]

Hi Guys,

Great forum, never had to post before as i've always found the answer searching through the forums,

I am about to rewire my house (it's a bare shell with exposed joists at the moment so will be a few weeks yet rest of the house is a repair so doesn't come under BC), I intend to do it under building notice. I feel 99.9% confident I can do it with no hic-cups and anything I am worried about and need checking I have a mate I can ask who is a fully qualified sparks and says will find an hour in the month to come and check for me.

To my questions, as I will be submitting a building notice application I expect to supply drawings of the installation, at the moment I have done a drawing breaking the house into it's floors with one floor per page showing all exact locations and all the walls, doorways etc..

Each floor has it's own power ring and lighting circuit, 1st floor has additional bathroom power circuit for shower and bath. as well as the ring.

I have shown every socket and fitting, colour coded the cables i.e red for ring main, blue for radial light circuit, purple for switched lighting (daisy chaining down lights, pulling lighting circuit to switch so effectively using the switch as the JB for inspection purposes, also crimping the earths at each fitting) except for bathroom which is all 12v

What I would like to know is would I need to show both the Live, Neutral and earth on each drawing or can I leave it as it, and just add the bonding where it's required ??

And secondly, The Bathroom it being fitted with both a steam shower and a jacuzzi bath (not got the ratings yet) will I have to have each of these on a separate supply from the CU even if their combined rating falls well within the rating of the cable and MCB ?? I am guessing I will but just wanted to make sure.

Just so I am not misunderstood on the last I know they will have to be separate from the rest of that floors main power ring, what I wanted to know is would I be better off having a separate supply for the shower and the bath.

I think that covered it all

 

[ban-all-sheds]

1) Re the drawings - ask LABC what they want. You say you intend to do this via a Building Notice - have you checked that your LABC will let you, and decided how far you're prepared to push it if they are oe of the ones that insist on a certificate from a qualifed electrician? Is your mate going to test all the circuits for you?

2) Level of detail - can't see why you should need to show individual conductors.

3) Bathroom - if the combined load is OK, one circuit with FCUs for each appliance will be fine.

4) If you're still at the planning stage, a few ideas to help with sixing the CU. The items on the list below may not all apply to you, but they are worth looking at to get you thinking:

1. Upstairs sockets
2. Downstairs sockets
3. Kitchen sockets
4. Circuit for appliances
5. Cooker circuit
6. Non-RCD circuit for F/F
7. Non-RCD circuit for CH boiler
8. Dedicated circuit for hifi
9. Dedicated circuit for IT equipment
10. Upstairs lights
11. Downstairs lights
12. Immersion heater
13. Shower
14. Alarm
15. Supply for outside lights
16. Supply for garden electrics
17. Supply for shed/garage

Plus any peculiarities brought about by your house layout & construction - e.g. in mine because of solid floors and where the rest of the sockets are, I have a radial just for one socket in the hall, the doorbell and the porch lights.

Plus a few spares on RCD & non-RCD sides for expansion beyond that for future unforeseen needs.

 

[Pat-UK]

Thanks B-A-S,

Great informative response, it is a 4 floor house so the lighting and power have been split

by floor.This was what I was I had planned before seeing your post, The only real difference

being the CH boiler protection, any particular reason why it should be on the Non RCD, I

assumed water, Leccy and ouch so stuck it on the RCD side.

I was hoping to find a 25 way CU to leave a few spare but this seem impossible to find. So was considering 2 12 way units instead.

I was going to mount the FCU's On the wall outside the bathroom as they can't be inspected under the floor and not 100% happy about putting them anywhere near water, Was planning on a radial for this circuit.




RCD
1: f1 Sockets
2: f2 Sockets
3: f3 Sockets
4: Kit (basement) Sockets
5: Circuit for appliances
6: Cooker circuit
7: Immersion heater
8: Bathroom Power (shower/Bath)
9: CH Boiler
10: Outside Power

Non RCD

1: f1 Lighting
2: f2 Lighting
3: f3 Lighting
4: Kitchen Lighting
5: F/F
6: Alarm
7: PC circuit
8: Smoke Alarm


As for the certificate, i will be getting my mate to check everything is OK, but he says they don't insist on qualified sparks to issue one, he said i'm allowed to fill it out myself provided I can demonstrate my readings are correct but will do it for me anyhow. Need to check with him that 2 CU's is OK

 

[Spark123]

Personally I would put the cooker, immersion and the c/h boiler on the non RCD side, the reason being if something happens where the RCD will not reset at least you can have heat. The cooker may also cause nuisance tripping.

 

[andy]

few month ago on house re-wires all we go was a A4 sheet of paper with upstairs and downstairs floor plan and locations of sockets/switches/lights, PIR's, door contacts, CU and alarm panel. and that was it. which way to take wiring etc was left to us... (altho it was pretty standard, 32A RCBO for kitchen ring, same again for house ring, MCB's for cooker, lights, alarm etc)

 

[Pat-UK]

Thanks for all your replies.

I managed to get hold of my mate and he has confirmed that they are OK with a non Qualified person filling out the cert provided they know before hand so they can check the results of my tests.

He has also confirmed that I can use 2 CU's provided they are isolated from one point, i.e. mains in to switch, to connector block, to CU's but has said I can get a 24 way (12+12) wylex board but they are really expensive.

One thing he did mention they were strict about was positioning of any holes put in joists to run cables, Luckily I only need one hole per floor as the internal walls are all stud walls even the external walls are plasterboard on studwork so nice and easy to run the cables round without any cutting holes

To do my drawings I have used CADdy ++ which can be found here SEE CADdy++ It's only a demo version but lasts 30 days which is long enough for me to do what I needed, I think it's a bit pricey really but it is nice to use.

I think I will prefer to keep the Imersion on the RCD or when the element fails which they tend to do in this hard water area, i'll have live hot water without even knowing so I think it's safer there, but thanks for the advice anyhow.

Thanks again for all your help, and I hope that something in this post helps someone else out too.

 

[Qedelec]

He has also confirmed that I can use 2 CU's provided they are isolated from one point, i.e. mains in to switch, to connector block, to CU's but has said I can get a 24 way (12+12) wylex board but they are really expensive.

You can have more than one main switch as long as there is a notice stating that the installation has multiple means of isolation and to make sure a circuit it 'dead' before commencing maintenance.

I think I will prefer to keep the Imersion on the RCD or when the element fails which they tend to do in this hard water area, i'll have live hot water without even knowing so I think it's safer there, but thanks for the advice anyhow.

Not a commonm occurence even in hard water areas, the MCB is likely to trip if live is exposed to water in the tank.