Socket off Lighting cct for alarm/door intercom

[bigzed]

Hi guys. A little question for you all if you don't mind. I have been doing some plumbing for a mate and while I was there he asked me if something he was planning to do would be OK so I thought I'd ask here seeing as you have all been so helpful with my own house electrics in the past.

What he has existing in the hallway is an unused FCU about 2' below the ceiling, spurred off the downstairs lighting cct. He wanted to know if it would be OK to use this to feed a double socket mounted at about 6' from the floor to allow him to plug in an alarm unit and a door intercom system.

Both the units together only draw about 2A at the most in use ( via transformers ) so I guess the cabling is OK to use ( existing 1.5mm T&E ) but I couldn't tell him if it will be notifiable or not as I'm not sure if it's classed as adding to existing ccts or not, also whether it's permissable to have a socket running off the lighting cct.

Any help you lads can offer will be gratefully received.

TIA - Bigzed

 

[bongos]

You could do this but I think it would be a poor design. If someone plugs something high powered into the socket you will lose your lights.

Instead you could use a FCU for each piece of equipment. You can get double back boxes designed for this which I believe will take two FCU's.

I don't believe this work would be notifiable as he is extending a circuit. Is the lighting circuit RCD protected?

 

[sparkwright]

Do you have to use 13 amp sockets?

Would 5 amp round pin sockets or fused spur units be ok?

Or are the transformers part of the plugs, like so many things nowadays?

 

[bigzed]

You could do this but I think it would be a poor design. If someone plugs something high powered into the socket you will lose your lights.

That was something I thought about but that's why he was going to put them up high to basically make them for the two aforementioned items only

Instead you could use a FCU for each piece of equipment. You can get double back boxes designed for this which I believe will take two FCU's.
I don't believe this work would be notifiable as he is extending a circuit. Is the lighting circuit RCD protected?

I would have liked to do it that way but to answer sparkwrights question as well, the transformers are "all in one" units in a moulded plug. The lighting cct isn't rcd protected, nothing in the house is, it's still all on an old wylex fusewire type CU ( albeit with replacement plug-in mcb's )

Cheers

 

[Chri5]

It must be a pretty carp alarm system to have a power supply that can be unplugged.

WTF is the point in that

 

[ColJack]

must be a pretty crap alarm system that you can pull the fuse out of the FCU for.. or turn off the breaker for..

 

[seasickstevie]

The intruder can always knock the power off in any house (as ColJack was alluding to).
The system depends on the rechargable battery in the panel. The power is just a trickle charge.

 

[bigzed]

Just had a thought guys, can you buy sockets that have some sort of mechanical restraint for the plug adapter ? Similar type of idea to the old BT plug locks so you couldn't remove the phone from the socket.

And yes, the alarm is battery powered. The adapter is there to keep the battery charged

 

[LoveRocket]

Yes, that would be absolutely fine. Not the best design in the world, but safe and compliant.

Put a 3A fuse in the FCU and connect the double socket to the load side of the FCU.