Fuse size for 12kw oven / hob

[davidrwilliams]

I have a house that was built about 13 years ago, the existing hob & oven have a combined draw of 12kw, the circuit breaker is 32A. At the time the Electrician said that was fine as you never get everything going at once. One of the books I have shows a 30A MCB as being fine up to 16kw of cooker/hob load. However I accept that theoretically I need 50A for my usage. I have never had any problems with this & am about to replace the appliances with new ones. Should I be looking for ones with less power requirements or would 12.5kw combined draw still be ok ?

David

 

[andy]

1 word: diversity.

its unlikely for everything to be used at the same time, altho you should tyr to avoid applying diversity too much to cookers since at special occasions you could well be usin almost everything

 

[Adam_151]

Its called diversity, for cookers in houses its 10A + 30% of the remainer + 5A if the cooker control unit has a socket, most people would havever say that applying that much diversity is not too wise, and some people recommend that you don't apply diversity to cooker circuits at all

Though if I was installing a cooker with a max rating of 12kw, I'd go for 10mm² and a 40A/45A breaker as opposed to the 6mm² on 32A that smaller cookers have, or i'd split it into separate oven and hob circuits

 

[davidrwilliams]

The Electrician may have called it diversity, I would call it saving money as he was on a fixed price deal to wire the house.

However I am reassured that at least it is a legitimate practice. My current hob is 6.3 kw & oven is 5.7kw (ie 12kw in total).

Rewiring is out of the question, & I was toying with a new hob of 6.8kw & oven of 5.5 Kw (ie 12.3kw), however I won't if I am going to keep tripping the fuse.

However in the last 13 years I haven't tripped it !!