Far rmore usually near the 230V mark here. Can be down towards 220V in some places; up towards 250V in others. Also fluctuates at different times. It's a nominal voltage for a reason. It's never constant.
Lighting earth issues - could I just run a fused spur from the power circuit
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A rock solid 240 to 242v here. 230v oven lamps, last no time at all, if they are not marked 240v, no point to buying them.
"Rock solid" yet fluctuates... But you can't seriously be claiming that it only ever fluctuates within 2V. Complete horseshit if I'm honest.
I don't sit there for hours, watching it, but on those occasions I have checked it, it is always within those bounds. Some small variation, is unavoidable, due to my own loads turning on and off, though less so if measure at the CU, which I never have bothered.
Yes, that's kind of what I've already done as a temp fix. I simply have an earth wire run from the light switch to the earth pin of a three pin plug and leave it plugged in. I don't know whether that could be made into something more permanent (ie concealed), but at least it's obvious what's being done this way.
Eventually I'll probably sort the lighting cables out (depending on disruptive future access) so 'borrowed earth' may be a better interim solution than using the spur method.
Thanks all for your further thoughts here. Seems I actually have plenty of options to consider.
Better than nowt, though not much better - what if someone needs to make use of the socket, and unplugs it?
I wouldn't claim 'rock solid' but I have rarely, if ever, seen a voltage less than 240V on any of my phases - most commonly around 243V-245V.
Well, I would call that rock solid. Certainly beats the 230 - 250v reported below...
So would I, IF I had written "always 243V-245V", but what I actually wrote was "most commonly 243V-245V" - which is obviously a very different kettle of fish!
The totality of the reality is that it sometimes goes down to 240V/241V, and and occasionally up to about 250V - so, roughly, 240V-250V
Yes, even my 'reality' does beat that.
I must say that I often wonder why most domestic installations seem to have relatively small degrees of variation, with supply voltages 'as high' as they usually are, and that leads me to further wonder whether the DNOs final bits of network are as 'efficient' as they could be - I would rather have expected them to use cables, and number of installations per cable, such that at times of peak demand, the voltage at the furthest installation fell to fairly close to 216.2V (and probably rise up to 240V+ (maybe even closer to 250V) during times of least demand).
Since I rarely, if ever, hear of variation anything like as large as that, it sounds as if they use cables that are quite a lot fatter than they actually need to be for the number of installations being supplied?
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By fused spur, I guess you mean a fused connection unit attached to a radial or ring final circuit, in which case you'd be limited to 13A.
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