Round at my brother-in-law's house today. He has an airing cupboard on the
landing and inside the cupboard is a fused switch for the immersion heater.
Wiring is conventional :- mains cable goes into the switch and flex goes
from the switch to the immersion heater.
He has bought a digital immersion heater timer from Screwfix so that he can
have the immersion heater coming on and going off automatically during the
summer months when he doesn't use his (oil fuelled) boiler.
He's a bit baffled by the switch and was asking my advice on how to connect
it. For a start there are only two connections inside the timer - for live
in and live out. No connections for neutral or earth. Also the instructions
state that the wiring (in and out) must be solid copper which complicates
matters because of the flex going to the immersion heater.
So...............how would one go about wiring up this timer between the
fused switch and the immersion heater? Any offers? The only way I could
think of would be to ignore the advice on solid copper and still use the
flex. Have cable from the fused switch into a junction box and then flex
from the j.box to the timer. remove outer insulation from the flex and cut
the live wire and connect that through the timer - leaving the neutral and
earth to continue on to the immersion heater. Seems a bit 'Heath
Robinson'ish' however.

Kev