This is a slightly third hand report, but I'm a bit worried about some
electrical work which a friend of mine has had done. He's had a two
bedroom flat in London rewired and been charged £6,000 (cough, cough
cough!). That's worrying enough in itself, although it's a bit late to
do anything about that.

What is worrying me is that it seems that in the kitchen there is no
separate cooker circuit. He's having a gas hob and an electric oven. I
presume that the oven is a 13A one (I don't know), but even so I
wouldn't be comfortable running that off the same ring as the rest of
the kitchen. Is such topography within either the spirit or the letter
of the current regs?

(Incidentally, I possibly went to the other extreme and put a cooker
circuit in (mine is 16A) and then two separate rings for everything
else (and there's no washing machine there).)

Cheers!

Martin

On 25 Mar, 19:43, Owain wrote:
Martin Pentreath wrote:
What is worrying me is that it seems that in the kitchen there is no
separate cooker circuit. He's having a gas hob and an electric oven. I
presume that the oven is a 13A one (I don't know), but even so I
wouldn't be comfortable running that off the same ring as the rest of
the kitchen. Is such topography within either the spirit or the letter
of the current regs?

It's permissible if the oven is a 13A one, as many are. Rather a cheap
way of doing it IMO but I suppose the assumption is the oven probably
won't be used much.

Is the immersion heater also on the ring? Because that's not supposed to
happen.

Owain

OK, thanks Owain. I will check about the immersion, but that has
slightly put my mind at rest. Knowing the friend in question it is
highly likely that the oven will only be used for heating up pizzas
once a month. But for six grand you would think the bloke could have
put in another bit of cable. He's had the flat empty and chased out
the screed, so another cable run would not really be much additional
trouble. Just for forward planning I would want a heavy duty cooker
circuit there to cope with possible changes of cooker in future
without the need for another rewire..

Incidentally the £6k did not extent to redoing the screed. He had
another bloke in to quote for that and was given a price of £1,000 for
filling in about 25 linear metres of conduit chasing in the floor! A
day's unskilled work I reckon. I've put him onto someone else who will
think it's a good job for £200. It's all enough to make you want to do-
it-yourself.

Cheers!

Martin

wrote:
On 25 Mar, 19:43, Owain wrote:
Martin Pentreath wrote:
What is worrying me is that it seems that in the kitchen there is no
separate cooker circuit. He's having a gas hob and an electric oven. I
presume that the oven is a 13A one (I don't know), but even so I
wouldn't be comfortable running that off the same ring as the rest of
the kitchen. Is such topography within either the spirit or the letter
of the current regs?

It's permissible if the oven is a 13A one, as many are. Rather a cheap
way of doing it IMO but I suppose the assumption is the oven probably
won't be used much.

Is the immersion heater also on the ring? Because that's not supposed to
happen.

Owain

OK, thanks Owain. I will check about the immersion, but that has
slightly put my mind at rest. Knowing the friend in question it is
highly likely that the oven will only be used for heating up pizzas
once a month. But for six grand you would think the bloke could have
put in another bit of cable. He's had the flat empty and chased out
the screed, so another cable run would not really be much additional
trouble. Just for forward planning I would want a heavy duty cooker
circuit there to cope with possible changes of cooker in future
without the need for another rewire..

Incidentally the £6k did not extent to redoing the screed. He had
another bloke in to quote for that and was given a price of £1,000 for
filling in about 25 linear metres of conduit chasing in the floor! A
day's unskilled work I reckon. I've put him onto someone else who will
think it's a good job for £200. It's all enough to make you want to do-
it-yourself.

Cheers!

Martin

Some full size ovens dont even eat 13A, its ok. £200, sheesh.


NT

wrote:
wrote:
On 25 Mar, 19:43, Owain wrote:
Martin Pentreath wrote:
What is worrying me is that it seems that in the kitchen there is no
separate cooker circuit. He's having a gas hob and an electric oven. I
presume that the oven is a 13A one (I don't know), but even so I
wouldn't be comfortable running that off the same ring as the rest of
the kitchen. Is such topography within either the spirit or the letter
of the current regs?
It's permissible if the oven is a 13A one, as many are. Rather a cheap
way of doing it IMO but I suppose the assumption is the oven probably
won't be used much.

Is the immersion heater also on the ring? Because that's not supposed to
happen.

Owain
OK, thanks Owain. I will check about the immersion, but that has
slightly put my mind at rest. Knowing the friend in question it is
highly likely that the oven will only be used for heating up pizzas
once a month. But for six grand you would think the bloke could have
put in another bit of cable. He's had the flat empty and chased out
the screed, so another cable run would not really be much additional
trouble. Just for forward planning I would want a heavy duty cooker
circuit there to cope with possible changes of cooker in future
without the need for another rewire..

Incidentally the £6k did not extent to redoing the screed. He had
another bloke in to quote for that and was given a price of £1,000 for
filling in about 25 linear metres of conduit chasing in the floor! A
day's unskilled work I reckon. I've put him onto someone else who will
think it's a good job for £200. It's all enough to make you want to do-
it-yourself.

Cheers!

Martin

Some full size ovens dont even eat 13A, its ok. £200, sheesh.


NT

Our double oven takes about 18A as I recall so it is on a separate circuit.

Martin Pentreath wrote:

What is worrying me is that it seems that in the kitchen there is no
separate cooker circuit. He's having a gas hob and an electric oven. I
presume that the oven is a 13A one (I don't know), but even so I
wouldn't be comfortable running that off the same ring as the rest of
the kitchen. Is such topography within either the spirit or the letter
of the current regs?


Many ovens are only about 2kW and designed to plug in. Some double ovens
have a higher peak load though.

In all likelihood it's fine.

(Incidentally, I possibly went to the other extreme and put a cooker
circuit in (mine is 16A) and then two separate rings for everything
else (and there's no washing machine there).)

Remember you can also apply diversity to domestic cooking appliances.
Which works out as 10A + 30% of the remaining load (plus another 5A if
there is a socket on the cooker point).

So even a cooker with a 30A maximum load, can be provisioned with a
circuit designed for a load of 10 + (30 - 10) * 0.3 = 16A

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"Invisible Man" wrote in message
...
wrote:

Some full size ovens dont even eat 13A, its ok. £200, sheesh.


NT

Our double oven takes about 18A as I recall so it is on a separate
circuit.

well there you go, if it was a single oven it'd pull 9 amps,

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:35:51 -0700 (PDT), Martin Pentreath
wrote:

This is a slightly third hand report, but I'm a bit worried about some
electrical work which a friend of mine has had done. He's had a two
bedroom flat in London rewired and been charged £6,000 (cough, cough
cough!). That's worrying enough in itself, although it's a bit late to
do anything about that.

£6k ...FFS .The sprka must have thought it was Christmas .Your
friend got more money than sense ??

On 26 Mar, 11:55, .
@ . wrote:
On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:35:51 -0700 (PDT), Martin Pentreath

wrote:
This is a slightly third hand report, but I'm a bit worried about some
electrical work which a friend of mine has had done. He's had a two
bedroom flat in London rewired and been charged £6,000 (cough, cough
cough!). That's worrying enough in itself, although it's a bit late to
do anything about that.

£6k * ...FFS .The sprka must have thought it was Christmas .Your
friend got more money than sense ??

I think a message has gone out on the north London tradesmen grapevine
that he's the local cash machine. I would have thought £6k is about a
month's work! He's certainly got more money than time, he just seems
to take the first quote they give him and never has time to check up
on what they're doing.

Thanks to all for the further advice - I seem to err too much on the
side of caution with these things, so it looks like it's all fine. I'd
still have specified a separate circuit for later expansion, but at
least his kitchen won't be bursting into flames in the foreseeable
future.

In message , John Rumm
writes
Martin Pentreath wrote:

What is worrying me is that it seems that in the kitchen there is no
separate cooker circuit. He's having a gas hob and an electric oven. I
presume that the oven is a 13A one (I don't know), but even so I
wouldn't be comfortable running that off the same ring as the rest of
the kitchen. Is such topography within either the spirit or the letter
of the current regs?


Many ovens are only about 2kW and designed to plug in. Some double
ovens have a higher peak load though.

In all likelihood it's fine.

(Incidentally, I possibly went to the other extreme and put a cooker
circuit in (mine is 16A) and then two separate rings for everything
else (and there's no washing machine there).)

Remember you can also apply diversity to domestic cooking appliances.
Which works out as 10A + 30% of the remaining load (plus another 5A if
there is a socket on the cooker point).

So even a cooker with a 30A maximum load, can be provisioned with a
circuit designed for a load of 10 + (30 - 10) * 0.3 = 16A


So with a simple single oven (maximum draw 13A) and a gas hob I take it
that a dedicated 32A circuit would not be essential? The reason I ask
is that I am about to get some quotes for rewiring our kitchen.

--
Robert

In article ,
robert writes:

So with a simple single oven (maximum draw 13A) and a gas hob I take it
that a dedicated 32A circuit would not be essential? The reason I ask
is that I am about to get some quotes for rewiring our kitchen.

It may still be worth doing. When I rewired my kitchen 7 years ago,
I put in a cooker circuit and switch, even though it currently has
a gas cooker. The 30A flex outlet actually has an unswitched 13A
socket outlet fitted at the moment, which powers the cooker's spark
ignition and 15W oven lamp! It would however be trivial to connect
an electric cooker at some point in the future.

You might also consider provisioning an electric shower circuit,
even if you don't currently have/need one.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]