Electric Cooker Wiring

[duxster]

Hi all

Just want to check as to whether it is safe/correct.

We have a 5 year old house. The kitchen was fitted by the builders and they installed an integral electric oven. This can be isolated with a cooker switch on the wall and it is fed by it's own mcb on the cosumer unit.

All sounds fine and it all works...

Yesterday my wife switched the oven on and a loud bang which she thought came from the switch on the wall. The mcb tripped also. I pulled the switch out and everthing looked fine but the cooker was dead.

Thinking the cooker must have blown I pulled it out of the cupboard and found that it not wired in as i would expect.

The builders have simply added a double socket behind the cooker and then the cooker plugs in on a normal 13amp plug. luckly I have found that it was the fuse in the plug that had gone so no need for a new cooker.

In previous houses the cooker has always been wired into one of the fixed blanking type outlets.

What do you think?

Cheers

Rob

 

[JohnD]

When you say "cooker" do you mean "oven?"

Most separate single ovens are rated below 3kw and are OK to connect through a 13Amp plug.

However, double ovens may be rated too high for that.

Look for the manufacturer's rating plate and/or instruction book and see what the power requirement is.


However, electric hobs (rings) use a lot more power, and will overload a 13Amp plug. So will an all-electric cooker with both rings and oven in a single unit. Both of these should be connected via a big "Cooker Switch" and a big "Cooker cable Outlet" on the wall and will have their own circuit on the CU, typically 32Amp unless a very big cooker.

 

[Steve]

At first glace i thought it could be a double oven overloading the 13A plug top fuse, but why would the MCB trip too . . . so it cant be (MCB should be rated at least 20A, more if theres a hob).

It is normal to have a single oven wired into a 13A plug though.

Theres probably a fault in the oven, given the circumstances. Surprised both the fuse and the mcb tripped - i though an MCB will clear a heavy fault quicker.