Kitchen electrics question

[AndyPRK]

Yeap no rcd.
And an rcbo for 1 circuit.

I'm not sure the rcbos are available for that unit anymore, so this maybe an occasion where sourcing them yourself off eBay would be worth investigation. You need to know what ratings are required.

Later rcbos do fit but require the front panel plastic trimming to accommodate the test button.

 

[JohnW2]

Thanks for the replies but jeez, calm down guys! ... When we got the house it had a old brown fuse box; part of the surveyors notes was this needed replacing, got an electrician in and this is what was installed:

Thanks. Roughly as we expected. What does circuit 'No 7' do?

The extractor/cooker hood is going to be ducted outside - do these hoods often bust into flames and spew fire everywhere? Sounds like they should be banned!

No - extremely rarely - but, as you have seen, some people are ultra-pessimistic (or 'ultra-cautious' as they would probably put it), and consdier all possible 'worst case scenarios'.

FWIW, my personal view is that if one does feel the need for an 'emergency cut off switch' (for any piece of electrical equipment) then, contrary to what some people would advise, I would personally say that it should be located 'not too close' to whatever piece of equipment it was related to - I don't like the idea of having to do battle with smoke and/or flames to get at it, in the very improbable event that I'd ever have to!

Kind Regards, John

 

[AndyPRK]

Nice of them to fit an rcd test label.

I bet no.7 is the door bell

 

[rjb2001]

Circuit 7 is the outside sockets.

If the kitchen is on fire, switching the extractor/hood off is going to be low down on my list of things to do....

 

[AndyPRK]

Oh fair play. The rcbo is doing something useful then.

 

[DaftPunk]

So the board was fully compliant when installed.

I won't hold my breath waiting for BAS apologising and admitting he was wrong to spout his mouth off like that.

 

[JohnW2]

If the kitchen is on fire, switching the extractor/hood off is going to be low down on my list of things to do....

Quite so, and even if it were one of your priorities, I imagine that you would not want to have to get too close to the source of the fire to switch it off!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

So the board was fully compliant when installed. I won't hold my breath waiting for BAS apologising and admitting he was wrong to spout his mouth off like that.

As I said, no-one (not even BAS) has denied that it would have been compliant in 2007, so long as sockets likely to be used for outdoor equipment were RCD protected. Provided that there was not, say, a socket near the front door (I presume the 'outdoor sockets' were probably in the 'back garden'), that CU/installation may well have complied.

However, I still share BAS's views that it's surprising that an electrician would have advised/advocated that CU in 2007 - when all-RCD or split-load CUs were more-or-less the norm (for 'new CUs'), and 'everyone knew' that, within a year, new regs much more demanding in terms of RCD protection were going to be in force.

Kind Regards, John

 

[AndyPRK]

Quite.

My house was built in 2001 and has the same CU but with an RCD! (For half)

Pme supply

And the cct identification stickers are still glued in place.

 

[bernardgreen]

If the kitchen is on fire, switching the extractor/hood off is going to be low down on my list of things to do....

Switching off a burning cooker hood as soon as it starts burning can prevent the kitchen catching fire.

How often does it happen. I really don't know but I can recall a few instances over the past 40 years of hoods damaged by fire.

 

[JohnW2]

Switching off a burning cooker hood as soon as it starts burning can prevent the kitchen catching fire. How often does it happen. I really don't know but I can recall a few instances over the past 40 years of hoods damaged by fire.

No one can really argue with you, since what you are saying is obviously true - as something which can, and occasionally does, happen.

However, my point remains that if one is going to have such an 'emergency switch' (for any electrical equipment which could catch on fire, or 'become live') then, IMO, it is important that such a switch should be a reasonable distance away from the equipment concerned. That seems like common sense to me.

Kind Regards, John

 

[RF Lighting]

Our CU is about 7 years old (replaced the old fusebox when we moved in)

And you ended up with one without an RCD?

Where did you find that useless electrician? B&Q?

In 2007 RCD protection for sockets likely to be used to supply portable equipment out doors had been a requirement for several years, and the draft of the 17th Edition of the Wiring Regulations was already out, so it was known that you'd need RCDs for all sockets, for concealed cables etc in 2008.

You really were badly advised and badly served by that negligent unprofessional fool.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with this entirely.

There's a draft amendment knocking around at the moment which bans the use of plastic consumer units. Whether this will be included in the final document is anyones guess, but by your logic I should be charging my customers more, and losing work in what is still a very cut throat market, and only installing metal clad CUs.

Anyone still fitting plastic consumer units must be a negligent unprofessional fool.

up until the 1st of January 2008, I was still installing CUs without RCDs in domestic environments. Not always, but nothing wrong with it. Dual RCD CUs were not available, and all RCBO boards were prohibitively expensive, so trying to comply with some draft regulations, whilst a great idea on an internet forum, does not work in the real world.

I'm sure you'll call me every name you can think of, but until you've spent years working this trade and see the difficulty of trying to run your own business, you will simply have no idea of life in the real world.

 

[JohnW2]

...up until the 1st of January 2008, I was still installing CUs without RCDs in domestic environments. Not always, but nothing wrong with it. Dual RCD CUs were not available, and all RCBO boards were prohibitively expensive, so trying to comply with some draft regulations, whilst a great idea on an internet forum, does not work in the real world.

Fair enough, but are you saying that you were actually advising customers to have non-RCD CUs installed in 2007? If offered the options, I realise that some customers would have opted for non-RCD, on the basis of cost - but that's a different matter. My thoughts are not so much about seeking compliance with non-yet-implemented draft regulations (although I do think that customers should have been made aware of that upcoming development) but, rather the fact that by 2007, single-RCD ('global' or split load) had been in common use for many years, and many electricians probably regarded them as 'standard' by then.

I'm sure you'll call me every name you can think of, but until you've spent years working this trade and see the difficulty of trying to run your own business, you will simply have no idea of life in the real world.

Very many of us, certainly not only electricians, work in worlds in which we have to try to secure and retain cost-conscious customers/clients - me included. However, I would always provide a client or prospective client with my genuine advice as to what, in my judgement, was the 'best' option (and what it would cost), even if I also offered them other, cheaper, alternatives that would still be 'acceptable' (compliant with regs etc.). Indeed, some clients would probably doubt my competence if they discovered that I had only suggested/advised a 'less-than-best' (albeit cheaper) option!

I certainly would not go anything like as far as BAS in talking of a "negligent incompetent fool" (since that clearly is not the case), but, as I've said, I am a little surprised that an electrician would have been advising/suggesting a non-RCD CU in 2007, even though I don't doubt that some customers would have asked for such a CU.

Kind Regards, John

 

[RF Lighting]

If it was the best solution for their needs, such as a first floor flat, or a house with an outside RCD socket, then I certainly would have advised against unnecessary RCD protection.

I still where ever possible, keep circuits free from RCD protection.

 

[JohnW2]

If it was the best solution for their needs, such as a first floor flat, or a house with an outside RCD socket, then I certainly would have advised against unnecessary RCD protection.

Fair enough. However, as I noted earlier, if the RCD socket were in the back garden and there were an indoor socket near the front door, you may have had to change that for an RCD one, even then, if you had wanted to be compliant with then-current regs.

I still where ever possible, keep circuits free from RCD protection.

Ah - that may explain your viewpoint (and advice). Given the serious paucity (near absence) of any concrete evidence that RCDs have had any appreciable impact on safety, I can't blame you for that view. [RCDs, not necessarily 30mA, in TT installations are obviously a different matter]. However, rightly or wrongly, and no matter what you and/or I may think, I suspect that it's not a very widely-held view - and one imagines that the requirement for RCD protection will probably increase even further as future regulations evolve (even without hard evidence for their value).

Kind Regards, John