On 20/10/2020 12:07, Chris Holmes wrote:
Hi All,

I know of 3 houses which have recently had additions to their
Electrics...€¦..

In the case of our house our thoroughly useless and I suspect
unqualified "sparky" insisted that the MCB for the lighting circuit
he had extended must be put on the RCD side of the CU before he could
sign off the jb and give us a certificate (he then failed to buy the
necessary busbar to do this (I got my own electrician to swap all the
lighting MCBs for RCBOs) and eventually got the certificate (The BCO
said the only bit he was bothered about was the extractor fan in the
bathroom).

My Brother's girlfriend had an outside security light fitted and the
sparky said he couldn't do it unless she got a new CU and specified
one (but the quote didn't detail whether it had a number or RCDs or
RCBOs or what (I presume it must have had one or t'other).

My Brother then had a new kitchen and the suppliers insisted on
fitting a new circuit or two (I assume they uprated the cooker
circuit). He has also recently had a couple of outside lights
replaced.

I was rather disappointed* to find that he still has his original CU
(All MCBs and I can't spot even 1 RCD in the house).

I know that there is no (or was) no requirement for an older house to
meet current regs (I suppose I may have just answered my own question
there).

But it would it be the case that when professionals are involved, at
least the circuits they work on / install should be RCD / RCBO
protected.

*This is a man who believes that 3 way 13A block type adapters are
dangerous and must never be used and wouldn't believe me that running
a 4 way off a way was ok if the second only had a BT Home Hub, a Hive
box and a DECT phone hanging off it. And has spent a fortune on
windows, doors, a porch, a kitchen, etc, etc but won't update the CU
unless he's held at gunpoint!

Anyways, to my question...€¦

Do any of the above scenarios mandate the fitting of RCDS / RCBOs?

While it is true that there is no requirement to bring properties that
are inline with previous versions of the regs up to modern spec, one
does have to do all new work to the regs in force at the time.

So for example, if adding a socket to a non RCD protected circuit, you
would need to either provide RCD protection for just that socket, or
retrofit it for the whole circuit. There would obviously be safety
benefits to the latter approach in some cases.

With the 18th edition RCDs are pretty much unavoidable on most circuits,
since all sockets now need them, and the cable protection requirements
mop up most of the others. Moving forward, all RCBO installs are the
sensible way forward for all but the most budget installs IMHO.


--
Cheers,

John.

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