On 2006-10-21 12:43:17 +0100, said:

On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 11:49:09 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

On 2006-10-21 11:39:16 +0100, said:

Hi all,

We got a new front door which is about a yard further forward than the
old one.

On the basis of the story that I heard about the Japanese leaving
their Dyson's out in the living room as an art work, I tried the same
line with leaving the consumer unit where it is now.
Didn't work. I'm not allowed out till I move it. (Nephew: "What did
you do now?)

Challenge/problem?



Moving it to new location, down and over means down stairs cables too
long, upstairs too short.


Too long, no probs: Snip, snip and Bob's your aunty.


Upstairs ones, I'll have to cross cables over each other in order to
reconnect to consumer unit.

Is this regulation, allowed, frowned on, or what?


Francis

Why do you need to cross the cables over?

Are the cables for upstairs long enough or will you need to join them?
If so, then doing so with crimped joints unless you want to have a lot
of junction boxes on show would be a good way. Those would need to be
additionally insulated if outside the consumer unit.

Otherwise if the cables are long enough except for entering the
consumer unit at the wrong end (if that's what you meant), then it may
be possible with some consumer units to swap around all the MCBs and
incoming main switch to effectively a mirror of what you have now.

I guess it doesn't need to be said that if this is contemplated, the
main fuses at the meter should be pulled.





The whole house is coming up to it's re-wiring time, but it will be
next year before that project comes up.

Downstairs circuits are fine. ("Good, we'll be able to have hot turkey
for Christmas")


Some of the upstairs cables have enough lenght to reach board. Some
too short. I had thought of the mirror image thingy.

I'll try some art work.


I II
I II
I II
I II
L______II_____________
II I
II I
II I
II I
II I
______________________
I I
I CU I
----------------------------------

That's what I mean by cables crossing

I see. Assuming that the cables are all visible, I am not aware of
any issue provided that a neat job is made and they are properly
supported.





I have junction boxes, connector blocks and those chocbox thingys
ready if I need to use them.

Apparently I'm going to build a nice little cupboard to house the
electrics.

If it's all going into a cupboard the lack of neatness of using
junction boxes shouldn't be a big issue.

If you use chocolate block connectors, they need to go inside some kind
of enclosure and be adequately rated. The other issue with any of
these methods is to make sure that the wires, after being extended, end
up on the correct MCBs. Having connections for ring final circuits
ending up on more than one because they get mixed up is definitely to
be avoided. It would be a very good idea to get a multimeter and to
at least do continuity tests on ring circuits to make sure that that
hasn't happened.




If I go crimped (I'm sure there's a joke there?!) what tools do I
need? And what is acceptable insulation. Tape?

You need to have a proper crimping tool with ratchet mechanism and the
correct type of crimps. Tape is not a suitable insulating material.
Something like heatshrink sleeve or in this case having all of the
crimps in an enclosure would be ways to do it.


http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/DVDHCR15.html

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...ols/index.html

(the

butt connectors).





Also, I learned that if we put in a second electric shower I need some
sort of switch so two can't be on at the same time. Any ideas on what
they are called.

Do you not have any other means of doing a shower? Electric showers
aren't that great.

I haven't come across change over switches for the application you
describe. A better way would be to get the supply upgraded if you
only have an electric shower as an option.