Re: Wiring - safely disconnecting Electric shower unit.

[Mitchyboybalboa]

Hi peeps, this is my first venture onto this forum and was hoping someone could help me out.

I have been asked by a family friend to replace their existing electric shower with a thermostatic unit. I am very confident about doing the plumbing side of the work and running the new hot water pipe and mounting the shower etc.
My problem is with the existing electrical wires that will be left after I disconnect the old shower. What is the procedure for decommissioning these if I want to leave them in situ for any future electric shower?
I'm not confident with electrics, but I want to ensure that no-one can inadvertantly turn on the supply. Would disconnecting the shower circuit at the consumer unit and putting a notice on it suffice? Is this a job for a qualified electrician or am I within my rights to attempt this myself?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, please don't shoot me down in flames I will take any advice given on board. Thanks

 

[rebuke]

I guess it depends how easy you want to make it for someone to put in a shower in the future. You could just remove the cable between the shower isolator and the shower itself, and that way the shower isolator is 'terminating' the feed.

If your friend doesn't want the isolator left however, then your best bet is to remove the cable from the CU, leaving it coiled up somewhere labelled appropriately (exactly how/where will depend on how the cable enters the CU).

Not sure what the regs state, since you're removing something I doubt it would be notifiable under Part P, since it's not new work (nothing really to test once you've removed it), but not 100% sure on that. If you're happy working inside a CU (remember even with main switch off the incoming tails to that switch will still be live), then you should be able to disconnect the live, neutral and earth of the cable fairly easily. You could either then replace the breaker with a blank, or just leave it there...

 

[Mitchyboybalboa]

Thanks for the reply Rebuke, very helpful.