I recently moved into a 6 year old house. In the utility room are spaces for washing machine and tumble dryer. Above the washer is a FCU and directly below this are two trailing sockets coming out of the wall (one slightly longer than the other to reach over to the space for the dryer). Initially I wasn’t sure if this was normal or not but I was only plugging in a washer for the time being whilst the other went unused. I knew being a 13a FCU that i wouldn’t be able to run both a washer and dryer at the same time without blowing it.
Yesterday I got a tumble dryer and tested that the second trailing socket worked which was fine. Today I had finished with the washing machine and out of habit turned the switch off at the wall and threw the stuff in the dryer. It took me 10mins to realise that this second trailing socket was still supplying power to the dryer even with the wall switch turned off!
Had a nosy at the breakers and came to the conclusion that the washing machine runs off it’s own breaker. The tumble dryer is wired into the ‘kitchen sockets’ breaker so I can only assume it completely bypasses this FCU completely. Now my concern is that I have this trailing socket running underneath the cupboard that seems to be wired directly into a 32a circuit with no kind of fuse protection for the cable and no way of isolating the dryer when I’m finished with it (unless I turn off the power to the kitchen). I’m not an electrician but I’m fairly certain this shouldn’t be the case?
Are there any immediate dangers to running the dryer like this until I can get someone to look at it?
Yesterday I got a tumble dryer and tested that the second trailing socket worked which was fine. Today I had finished with the washing machine and out of habit turned the switch off at the wall and threw the stuff in the dryer. It took me 10mins to realise that this second trailing socket was still supplying power to the dryer even with the wall switch turned off!
Had a nosy at the breakers and came to the conclusion that the washing machine runs off it’s own breaker. The tumble dryer is wired into the ‘kitchen sockets’ breaker so I can only assume it completely bypasses this FCU completely. Now my concern is that I have this trailing socket running underneath the cupboard that seems to be wired directly into a 32a circuit with no kind of fuse protection for the cable and no way of isolating the dryer when I’m finished with it (unless I turn off the power to the kitchen). I’m not an electrician but I’m fairly certain this shouldn’t be the case?
Are there any immediate dangers to running the dryer like this until I can get someone to look at it?
