Installing additional sockets

[Katron]

It is fine coming on this forum and deride me, but I was asking for advice and suggestions, so I can do the job correctly.....Thought that this was a decent site,

I have had some great advice before from other very helpful people, who I appreciate greatly.

Easy ways to sort this situation then please?

 

[Katron]

Reg 130-07-01.....'No addition or alteration, temp or perm, shall be made to an existing installation, unless it has been ascertained that the rating and the condition of any existing equipment, inc distributor, which will have to carry any additional load is adequate for the altered circumstances and the earthing and bonding arrangements are also adequate'.

From what I have been told then, if somebody wanted an additional socket in a kitchen say or for that matter on ground floor level, and is protected by an 3036 fuse, you need to either fit a rcd socket outlet or change the circuit to incorporate an rcd? Is this correct? So I know for the future.

You wouldn't be making the addition any less safe than it was before.

 

[ColJack]

Forgive me, but I was under the impression that if you upgraded the CU, then you had to upgrade the main earths, but not if you were doing minor works.

you answered your own question there with the above reg you quoted..

that reg makes no mention of having to update the installation to the current regs, just that the existing cables and fuses etc are capable of taking any extra load created by the addition..

it is preferable to install RCD protection

 

[Katron]

thankyou that is how I interpreted it has.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

that reg makes no mention of having to update the installation to the current regs

Apart from the earthing and bonding.

No compulsion to upgrade to current regs when doing anything.

But if you add new sockets that could reasonably be expected etc then they should be RCD protected.

If it's just the one socket, then an RCD one is OK, but a whole extension on a couple of RCD spurs isn't on....

 

[Katron]

Would it be ok to split the tails into a double pole service connector block, then one pair to go to cu, and the other to a 2way rcd cu unit and into it goes my downstairs ring main? Or is there an easier way?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

That would be fine, but if there's space your customer would be better advised to put a full-sized CU in, empty apart from the RCD and the MCB, then a full swap could be done in the future.

 

[Katron]

thankyou.....i shall try and persuade him....

thanks again.....