On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:23:23 +0100, Bob Minchin wrote:

Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:53:20 +0100, Bob Minchin
wrote:

Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 16:14:24 +0100, Bob Minchin
wrote:

Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:

I don't think there are empty fuse carriers lying about, my father
would
have said something.
Well in that case, changing to 3 phase will likely be expensive and not
necessarily based on actual cost from what I've heard others mention.

If the feed wire coming into his fusebox really is 415V, then a second
phase is just sat there. A second fuse holder and another meter won't
cost much will it?

But you need 3 phases.

No he doesn't. He just wants more amps at 240V. So using a second
phase for the boiler as though it were in a second house would do.

If the fuse holders are not there to terminate
the original cables. The two ways you have atm are neutral and one fused
live which provides 240v. The 415 sticker is a left over from before.

As I tried to suggest before, the Price for three phase connection is
NOT related to the Cost of doing the work.
Supply and demand at work here.

If the wire is already there, you pay for an Electricity Board
electrician to come and do some wiring, it would cost the same as any
other wiring by them which took that amount of time. They would
probably charge the same for reinstating a disconnected connection that
needs a new meter etc. Supply and Demand does not make sense in this
context.

I was forgetting that you know everything.

You quoted the phrase "supply and demand" and didn't explain why you thought that. It's nothing to do with supply and demand. You're asking for en electrician to come out and do something he can already do, with the equipment he already has, so he gets paid at the normal rate. If you were a plumber that usually fitted baths and did an occasional sink, you wouldn't charge 10 times as much for the sink.

But wait why did you ask the question in the first place???

The question I asked was whether it's common to have three phases in a normal house.

--
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:15:32 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW
wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect to is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements),

The earth will be available in the consumer unit. He connects to that,
not in the meter box.

number and type of live conductors,

You can see in the consumer unit what is available. In this case, one
100A 240V conductor.

details of protective device.

Which is in the consumer unit.


Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.



--
Adam

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:28:07 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:15:32 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW

wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the
fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he
was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would
be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect to
is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements),

The earth will be available in the consumer unit. He connects to that,
not in the meter box.

number and type of live conductors,

You can see in the consumer unit what is available. In this case, one
100A 240V conductor.

details of protective device.

Which is in the consumer unit.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.



I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info means
**** all to your question

--
Adam

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:47:46 +0100, ARW wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:28:07 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:15:32 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW

wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the
fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he
was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would
be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect to
is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements),

The earth will be available in the consumer unit. He connects to that,
not in the meter box.

number and type of live conductors,

You can see in the consumer unit what is available. In this case, one
100A 240V conductor.

details of protective device.

Which is in the consumer unit.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a shower.

--
Confucius say man who speak with forked tongue satisfy two women at once.

"ARW" wrote in message
...
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW
wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect to is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements), number and type of live
conductors, details of protective device.

More than you think.

All of that information may well be available at the "fuse box" (consumer
unit), without needing to visit the master fuse and meter. In my present
house it's difficult to distinguish because both are in the same place, but
in my last house which had separate meter and consumer unit locations, the
RCD (protective device) was part of the consumer unit - unless for all
electrical installation certificates the electrician also needs to inspect
the master fuse (a wire fuse rather than an MCB or RCD). Is house earthing
usually via the meter installation rather than via the consumer unit? I
*think* I remember a fat green-and-yellow wire coming from the CU and going
to the cold water rising main under the sink.

When we had a new electric shower fitted in our present house, I don't
remember the electrician going to the meter/CU area - rather trustingly he
relied on me saying "I've turned off the master switch" - and yet he gave us
a certificate of installation.

I hadn't realised that certificate of installing a device involved doing a
sanity check on the rest of the electrical installation in the house that is
not specific to the device being installed. It's good if this is the case.

Would the electrician actually need to know that there was a three-phase
cable of which one phase was connected to a meter and the other two were
"blind ends", and distinguish that from the more normal case of one phase
supply?

In the case of three-phase supply where the customer only now uses one, is
the disconnection only at the customer's end, or do they also disconnect at
the overhead pole in the street? Assuming overhead rather than underground.
And if the wire every needed replacing would it tend to be replaced with a
two-core rather than three-core pole-to-house cable?

Our house is a terrace of three with three cables from the pole to the end
of the terrace, but three cables are fastened to the house wall from our
neighbours to us (middle of three) and one goes into our house but two
continue to our neighbour on the other side, whereas I'd expect two cables
on the incoming side and one on the outgoing side.

What is the normal arrangement for the number of adjacent houses which are
fed from the same phase? Do they tend to alternate phases with every house
or do they tend to feed several (eg three) houses from one phase, then feed
the next three from the next phase, etc.

I remember at work when our lab was rewired, every bench was fed from a
different phase and there were warnings not to connect equipment on one
bench (eg by RS-232, Ethernet, USB or other low-voltage data cable) to
equipment on another bench, which caused us horrendous problems.

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:47:46 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:28:07 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:15:32 +0100, ARW

wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW

wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky
did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the
fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he
was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would
be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect
to
is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements),

The earth will be available in the consumer unit. He connects to
that,
not in the meter box.

number and type of live conductors,

You can see in the consumer unit what is available. In this case, one
100A 240V conductor.

details of protective device.

Which is in the consumer unit.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.


If you say so.

--
Adam

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:20:03 +0100, NY wrote:

"ARW" wrote in message
...
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW
wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect to is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements), number and type of live
conductors, details of protective device.

More than you think.

All of that information may well be available at the "fuse box" (consumer
unit), without needing to visit the master fuse and meter. In my present
house it's difficult to distinguish because both are in the same place, but
in my last house which had separate meter and consumer unit locations, the
RCD (protective device) was part of the consumer unit - unless for all
electrical installation certificates the electrician also needs to inspect
the master fuse (a wire fuse rather than an MCB or RCD). Is house earthing
usually via the meter installation rather than via the consumer unit? I
*think* I remember a fat green-and-yellow wire coming from the CU and going
to the cold water rising main under the sink.

When we had a new electric shower fitted in our present house, I don't
remember the electrician going to the meter/CU area - rather trustingly he
relied on me saying "I've turned off the master switch" - and yet he gave us
a certificate of installation.

I hadn't realised that certificate of installing a device involved doing a
sanity check on the rest of the electrical installation in the house that is
not specific to the device being installed. It's good if this is the case.

Would the electrician actually need to know that there was a three-phase
cable of which one phase was connected to a meter and the other two were
"blind ends", and distinguish that from the more normal case of one phase
supply?

In the case of three-phase supply where the customer only now uses one, is
the disconnection only at the customer's end, or do they also disconnect at
the overhead pole in the street? Assuming overhead rather than underground.
And if the wire every needed replacing would it tend to be replaced with a
two-core rather than three-core pole-to-house cable?

Our house is a terrace of three with three cables from the pole to the end
of the terrace, but three cables are fastened to the house wall from our
neighbours to us (middle of three) and one goes into our house but two
continue to our neighbour on the other side, whereas I'd expect two cables
on the incoming side and one on the outgoing side.

What is the normal arrangement for the number of adjacent houses which are
fed from the same phase? Do they tend to alternate phases with every house
or do they tend to feed several (eg three) houses from one phase, then feed
the next three from the next phase, etc.

I remember at work when our lab was rewired, every bench was fed from a
different phase and there were warnings not to connect equipment on one
bench (eg by RS-232, Ethernet, USB or other low-voltage data cable) to
equipment on another bench, which caused us horrendous problems.

That's a weird idea, you'd think they'd at least have each room on its own phase.

Although I can't see the problem. USB for example would have its ground the same as the appliances earth, which remains constant for all the phases.

--
On the topic of mobile phones:
Anything bigger than 4 inches is getting into the region where most people would have difficulty holding and using the device comfortably -- Callum Kerr, 2013.

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and bland
statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which don't of
themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a certificate or
cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and we'll ask someone
who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting a
URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered as
to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you have
never seen]".

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:21:43 +0100, ARW wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:47:46 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:28:07 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:15:32 +0100, ARW

wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW

wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky
did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the
fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he
was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would
be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect
to
is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements),

The earth will be available in the consumer unit. He connects to
that,
not in the meter box.

number and type of live conductors,

You can see in the consumer unit what is available. In this case, one
100A 240V conductor.

details of protective device.

Which is in the consumer unit.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

If you say so.

Odd, you're usually what I consider the more helpful sensible bloke in here. Why don't you just list what you would need to see in the meter box that you cannot see in the CU, and why you need to see it.

--
Legalise drugs now and stop the crime
http://www.legalisedrugs.co.uk/

On Saturday, 29 August 2015 14:19:08 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 10:06:26 +0100, newshound wrote:

On 29/08/2015 01:17, wrote:
On Saturday, 29 August 2015 00:13:19 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
My father has said he has a 415V sticker on the feed into his meter box. From what he's told me there is the normal arrangement of master fuse, meter, then into the house to the consumer unit. The house was built in 1985ish and is detached. I've never seen inside the meterbox myself, only the consumer unit, which looked like a normal run of the mill row of circuit breakers with one master at the end, 100A. If there were three phases in the meterbox I'd expect his description to include a lot more. Now the previous owner did have an ironwork hobby with "high powered equipment", but he was a very frugal sort and I doubt he would have got three phases installed if he didn't absolutely have to - mind you I believe he was the first owner of the house and designed it himself, so maybe it's just as cheap to get three phases when building the property? The reason this has come up is they've just had a 10kW electric shower fitted (used to run from the hot water tank, but that one
wa
s
old and leaky) and are considering replacing their ageing oil boiler with an electric one, which the electrician fitting the shower warned would require a relay to switch off the boiler so it didn't run at the same time as the shower as he'd run out of juice. When he saw 415V he was wondering if he infact had more phases available.

clear piccy wanted


NT


Ignore BM, this is the right answer. You could well be right, there
might or might not be 3 phase available. If the current electrician
cannot advise, then you need someone who works on (small) industrial
sites. Sounds like perhaps the 3 phase meter has been taken out and
replaced with a single phase one.

If he (or I but I'm not up there) really wanted to know, it's easy enough to peek around and use a multimeter. But at the moment it's just a matter of interest for a possible future electric boiler installation. I was just wondering if houses ever had more than one phase installed or if you had to ask for it.



Some houses were supplied with three phases if there was an abnormally high load or a workshop attached with maybe three phase motors or welders.
In some cases if there were electric storage heaters. But his was for quite big houses.

But quite unusual.
You need to see if there are four wires entering the premises or two.
The cutout will have three fuses if it is a three phase supply.

On 29/08/2015 16:35, newshound wrote:
On 29/08/2015 15:07, Fredxxx wrote:
On 29/08/2015 14:59, newshound wrote:
On 29/08/2015 12:39, ARW wrote:
"newshound" wrote in message
...
On 29/08/2015 10:57, ARW wrote:



BTW rental properties with a 3 phase supply are in demand for those
that
like to grow plants.

There are two unmetered phases available and all that is stopping you
using them is two meter seals and a two missing fuses.


Is that right? My house (and the others in the street) originally had
a single phase overhead supply, it now has an underground one.

I'd assumed that this SWA was single phase,

It will not be SWA.

Well it looked fat enough to me to be SWA but it isn't magnetic, so fair
enough.

You still havn't answered the question, do you think I have three phases
coming into the master fuse block?

If you hacksaw into it, you might be able to see how many conductors
there are.

Report back when you've counted them.

I think I asked a perfectly reasonable question. Adam seemed to be
asserting that the cabling was there to the board, which surprised me a
little.

Apologies, I initially thought I was reply to woosyguy's post!

To be honest the only way you could tell would be from the size of the
cable entering the building and it's type and rating.

I would have thought each phase would have been properly terminated and
not just cut.

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:41:50 +0100, harry wrote:

On Saturday, 29 August 2015 14:19:08 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 10:06:26 +0100, newshound wrote:

On 29/08/2015 01:17, wrote:
On Saturday, 29 August 2015 00:13:19 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
My father has said he has a 415V sticker on the feed into his meter box. From what he's told me there is the normal arrangement of master fuse, meter, then into the house to the consumer unit. The house was built in 1985ish and is detached. I've never seen inside the meterbox myself, only the consumer unit, which looked like a normal run of the mill row of circuit breakers with one master at the end, 100A. If there were three phases in the meterbox I'd expect his description to include a lot more. Now the previous owner did have an ironwork hobby with "high powered equipment", but he was a very frugal sort and I doubt he would have got three phases installed if he didn't absolutely have to - mind you I believe he was the first owner of the house and designed it himself, so maybe it's just as cheap to get three phases when building the property? The reason this has come up is they've just had a 10kW electric shower fitted (used to run from the hot water tank, but that
one
wa
s
old and leaky) and are considering replacing their ageing oil boiler with an electric one, which the electrician fitting the shower warned would require a relay to switch off the boiler so it didn't run at the same time as the shower as he'd run out of juice. When he saw 415V he was wondering if he infact had more phases available.

clear piccy wanted


NT


Ignore BM, this is the right answer. You could well be right, there
might or might not be 3 phase available. If the current electrician
cannot advise, then you need someone who works on (small) industrial
sites. Sounds like perhaps the 3 phase meter has been taken out and
replaced with a single phase one.

If he (or I but I'm not up there) really wanted to know, it's easy enough to peek around and use a multimeter. But at the moment it's just a matter of interest for a possible future electric boiler installation. I was just wondering if houses ever had more than one phase installed or if you had to ask for it.

Some houses were supplied with three phases if there was an abnormally high load or a workshop attached with maybe three phase motors or welders.
In some cases if there were electric storage heaters. But his was for quite big houses.

The one previous owner did have an ironwork hobby with large equipment in the double garage with adjoining workshop.

But quite unusual.
You need to see if there are four wires entering the premises or two.
The cutout will have three fuses if it is a three phase supply.

I'm not there, but I was told what it looked like. There are no extra fuses or evidence of where they used to be. There is only one cable coming into the meter box through one hockey stick, and it's the same width as my single phase one. This leads to the master fuse, then two wires go through the meter from that, and an earth straight into the house. If there used to be three phases, it's been very well tidied up.

--
A military pilot called for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked."
Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.
"Ah," the fighter pilot remarked, "The dreaded seven-engine approach."

"NY" wrote in message
news
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and bland
statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which don't of
themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a certificate or
cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and we'll ask someone
who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting a
URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered
as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you have
never seen]".


What long URL are you talking about?

As a matter of principal I am never rude to the OP as he is always polite to
me (and he has some good sigs)

How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate, does that
make me ill mannered and unhelpful?

You are a thick daft ****:-)




--
Adam

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
I remember at work when our lab was rewired, every bench was fed from a
different phase and there were warnings not to connect equipment on one
bench (eg by RS-232, Ethernet, USB or other low-voltage data cable) to
equipment on another bench, which caused us horrendous problems.

That's a weird idea, you'd think they'd at least have each room on its own
phase.

Although I can't see the problem. USB for example would have its ground
the same as the appliances earth, which remains constant for all the
phases.

Yes I thought the restrictions seemed draconian considering that all signal
cables have a signal ground which may be connected to a common mains earth
ground through the equipment or else will be floating wrt mains earth and so
will be no worse for two pieces of equipment on the same phase compared with
equipment on two different phases. It meant that if we took any portable
equipment into the lab, we had to be careful to plug it into the same bench
as the equipment, even if that meant unplugging something else to free up a
mains socket. (*) They even supplied little opto-isolators if we ever
needed temporarily to connect a server on one bench by Ethernet to a router
on another bench when setting up a private LAN.

Maybe the worry is that if mains-live gets onto a signal wire separately on
both pieces of equipment (**) then there's phase-to-phase voltage between
the two whereas there's no voltage between equipment on the same phase, so
you wouldn't get a shock if you touched signals on both devices (providing
you weren't earthed) in the latter case.

I remember our department manager called site services when he became aware
of the operational problems it was causing us, and got them to cost out
rewiring the lab onto a single phase, with SS covering the cost, given that
the change was something that site services had taken it upon themselves to
introduce when we'd not asked for it. Sadly the whole department was made
redundant before the matter could be taken any further... So all the
building/rewiring work was a complete waste of everyone's time and money,
given that no other department with similar need for a lab moved onto that
floor - but such is life!

(*) What they didn't consider was that some of us had old VT220 terminals on
our desks connected by RS232 to servers in the lab, and no attempt was made
to ensure that the desk was on the same phase as the bench in the lab. It
didn't take some of long to see that unwitting loophole in the regulations.

(**) Unlikely for one piece of equipment, let alone two, to fail in this
way, but you've got to cover the worst-case scenario.

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:51:44 +0100, ARW wrote:

"NY" wrote in message
news
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and bland
statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which don't of
themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a certificate or
cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and we'll ask someone
who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting a
URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered
as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you have
never seen]".


What long URL are you talking about?

As a matter of principal I am never rude to the OP as he is always polite to
me (and he has some good sigs)

Well **** me, that doesn't normally happen. I tend to antagonise most folk on newsgroups.

How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate, does that
make me ill mannered and unhelpful?

You said "the info" when you could have said what info it is.

--
Peter is listening to Psy - Gangnam style

"ARW" wrote in message
...
How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate, does
that make me ill mannered and unhelpful?

You could explain what info is contained on the cutout that is not
discernable at the consumer unit, and what info is legally required on a
certificate of installation. I for one have no idea what a cutout is,
despite having done a degree in electrical/electronic engineering. Maybe
it's common knowledge amongst electrical installers - but some of us aren't,
despite having more general technical knowledge.

It is better to give people info that they may or may not know than assume
that they know it and get cross when they don't.

Sorry to go on about it but it's a pet hate of mine - people who say to me
"you're doing it wrong - but I can't be bothered to explain where/why you're
wrong or what I want you to do differently" - and I was defending the OP who
I could sense was getting similarly narked.

It's like those people who say "just google it" without saying what phrase
will return just the relevant answers without lots of other guff.

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:52:12 +0100, NY wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
I remember at work when our lab was rewired, every bench was fed from a
different phase and there were warnings not to connect equipment on one
bench (eg by RS-232, Ethernet, USB or other low-voltage data cable) to
equipment on another bench, which caused us horrendous problems.

That's a weird idea, you'd think they'd at least have each room on its own
phase.

Although I can't see the problem. USB for example would have its ground
the same as the appliances earth, which remains constant for all the
phases.

Yes I thought the restrictions seemed draconian considering that all signal
cables have a signal ground which may be connected to a common mains earth
ground through the equipment or else will be floating wrt mains earth and so
will be no worse for two pieces of equipment on the same phase compared with
equipment on two different phases. It meant that if we took any portable
equipment into the lab, we had to be careful to plug it into the same bench
as the equipment, even if that meant unplugging something else to free up a
mains socket. (*) They even supplied little opto-isolators if we ever
needed temporarily to connect a server on one bench by Ethernet to a router
on another bench when setting up a private LAN.

Maybe the worry is that if mains-live gets onto a signal wire separately on
both pieces of equipment (**) then there's phase-to-phase voltage between
the two whereas there's no voltage between equipment on the same phase, so
you wouldn't get a shock if you touched signals on both devices (providing
you weren't earthed) in the latter case.

I remember our department manager called site services when he became aware
of the operational problems it was causing us, and got them to cost out
rewiring the lab onto a single phase, with SS covering the cost, given that
the change was something that site services had taken it upon themselves to
introduce when we'd not asked for it. Sadly the whole department was made
redundant before the matter could be taken any further... So all the
building/rewiring work was a complete waste of everyone's time and money,
given that no other department with similar need for a lab moved onto that
floor - but such is life!

(*) What they didn't consider was that some of us had old VT220 terminals on
our desks connected by RS232 to servers in the lab, and no attempt was made
to ensure that the desk was on the same phase as the bench in the lab. It
didn't take some of long to see that unwitting loophole in the regulations.

(**) Unlikely for one piece of equipment, let alone two, to fail in this
way, but you've got to cover the worst-case scenario.

Where I used to work (and I'm sure plenty large buildings are like this), there were three phases throughout the building, and ethernet connections throughout the building. There was no attempt made to isolate anything from anything.

As for your **, you'd only need one to cause severe damage, two wouldn't be any worse.

--
But she was always fat. She was born an only twin.

On 29/08/2015 19:28, NY wrote:
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and
bland statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which
don't of themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a
certificate or cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and
we'll ask someone who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting
a URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered
as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you
have never seen]".

While in part I might agree with you, ToughGuy is a troll and will
typically bait people into never ending arguments. I'm not sure if he
should be treated the same as other posters, though I must admit in this
case I would be intrigued at Adam's response. Sometimes responding to
bait we can find ourselves cornered into submission.

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 20:09:43 +0100, Fredxxx wrote:

On 29/08/2015 19:28, NY wrote:
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and
bland statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which
don't of themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a
certificate or cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and
we'll ask someone who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting
a URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered
as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you
have never seen]".

While in part I might agree with you, ToughGuy is a troll and will
typically bait people into never ending arguments. I'm not sure if he
should be treated the same as other posters, though I must admit in this
case I would be intrigued at Adam's response. Sometimes responding to
bait we can find ourselves cornered into submission.

Idiot. I asked a simple question. The only reason for this thread is to find out if my father has three phases.

--
A penny saved is a government oversight.

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:51:44 +0100, ARW wrote:

"NY" wrote in message
news
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and bland
statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which don't of
themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a certificate or
cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and we'll ask someone
who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting a
URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered
as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you have
never seen]".


What long URL are you talking about?

As a matter of principal I am never rude to the OP as he is always polite to
me (and he has some good sigs)

How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate, does that
make me ill mannered and unhelpful?

I don't what the English rules are, but up here in Scotland we don't do certificates, especially not for just fitting a shower. Perhaps when originally wiring the house, but why on earth would you need a shower certificate? Who are you going to show it to?

--
Peter is listening to Psy - Gangnam style

On Saturday, 29 August 2015 20:34:07 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
I don't what the English rules are, but up here in Scotland we don't do
certificates, especially not for just fitting a shower.

The rules, i.e. BS7671 Wiring Regulations or an equivalent level of safety, are the same in Scotland and England.

Notification to Building Control is slightly different, but the requirements for wiring are the same.

Owain

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 20:50:30 +0100, wrote:

On Saturday, 29 August 2015 20:34:07 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
I don't what the English rules are, but up here in Scotland we don't do
certificates, especially not for just fitting a shower.

The rules, i.e. BS7671 Wiring Regulations or an equivalent level of safety, are the same in Scotland and England.

Notification to Building Control is slightly different, but the requirements for wiring are the same.

Well I've never heard of any sparkys here bothering with that rubbish. Maybe for a whole rewiring so you can use the document when selling the house, but who cares about a shower?

--
More and more cities are instituting a 10:30 PM curfew for everyone younger than 18.
Experts say keeping teens indoors at night is the only way to make the streets safe for adults.

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 20:50:30 +0100, wrote:

On Saturday, 29 August 2015 20:34:07 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
I don't what the English rules are, but up here in Scotland we don't do
certificates, especially not for just fitting a shower.

The rules, i.e. BS7671 Wiring Regulations or an equivalent level of safety, are the same in Scotland and England.

Notification to Building Control is slightly different, but the requirements for wiring are the same.

I don't get a special certificate when a mechanic replaces the brakes on my car, and they could be a hell of a lot more dangerous than a shower.

--
More and more cities are instituting a 10:30 PM curfew for everyone younger than 18.
Experts say keeping teens indoors at night is the only way to make the streets safe for adults.

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:52:12 +0100, NY wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
I remember at work when our lab was rewired, every bench was fed from a
different phase and there were warnings not to connect equipment on one
bench (eg by RS-232, Ethernet, USB or other low-voltage data cable) to
equipment on another bench, which caused us horrendous problems.

That's a weird idea, you'd think they'd at least have each room on its
own
phase.

Although I can't see the problem. USB for example would have its ground
the same as the appliances earth, which remains constant for all the
phases.

Yes I thought the restrictions seemed draconian considering that all
signal
cables have a signal ground which may be connected to a common mains
earth
ground through the equipment or else will be floating wrt mains earth and
so
will be no worse for two pieces of equipment on the same phase compared
with
equipment on two different phases. It meant that if we took any portable
equipment into the lab, we had to be careful to plug it into the same
bench
as the equipment, even if that meant unplugging something else to free up
a
mains socket. (*) They even supplied little opto-isolators if we ever
needed temporarily to connect a server on one bench by Ethernet to a
router
on another bench when setting up a private LAN.

Maybe the worry is that if mains-live gets onto a signal wire separately
on
both pieces of equipment (**) then there's phase-to-phase voltage between
the two whereas there's no voltage between equipment on the same phase,
so
you wouldn't get a shock if you touched signals on both devices
(providing
you weren't earthed) in the latter case.

I remember our department manager called site services when he became
aware
of the operational problems it was causing us, and got them to cost out
rewiring the lab onto a single phase, with SS covering the cost, given
that
the change was something that site services had taken it upon themselves
to
introduce when we'd not asked for it. Sadly the whole department was made
redundant before the matter could be taken any further... So all the
building/rewiring work was a complete waste of everyone's time and money,
given that no other department with similar need for a lab moved onto
that
floor - but such is life!

(*) What they didn't consider was that some of us had old VT220 terminals
on
our desks connected by RS232 to servers in the lab, and no attempt was
made
to ensure that the desk was on the same phase as the bench in the lab. It
didn't take some of long to see that unwitting loophole in the
regulations.

(**) Unlikely for one piece of equipment, let alone two, to fail in this
way, but you've got to cover the worst-case scenario.

Where I used to work (and I'm sure plenty large buildings are like this),
there were three phases throughout the building, and ethernet connections
throughout the building. There was no attempt made to isolate anything
from anything.

As for your **, you'd only need one to cause severe damage, two wouldn't
be any worse.

Good troll Peter.
Now, lets look at all the dicks that replied to you.

"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
"newshound" wrote in message
o.uk...
You still havn't answered the question, do you think I have three
phases
coming into the master fuse block?

If you hacksaw into it, you might be able to see how many conductors
there are.

Report back when you've counted them.

I think I asked a perfectly reasonable question. Adam seemed to be
asserting that the cabling was there to the board, which surprised me a
little.

I think you asked a very sensible question and clearly set out that it was
theoretical because you aren't actually at your father's house to look at
the installation and answer further questions - so you wanted to be armed
with the things to look out for when you next see him. In the meantime you
were asking a theoretical "how is it normally done" question, with the
proviso that there are bound to be exceptions to any rule.

I'm shocked at the amount of flak that you've had from some people who
have nothing to contribute except to strengthen my opinion that they exist
on the newsgroup just to be prize ****s and to indulge in private
vendettas. Mentioning no names...


Is three-phase (or at least two-phase or split-phase) wiring common in
domestic UK environments? I've only ever seen it in the US where their
normal wall-socket voltage is so puny that heavy-duty appliances like
tumble driers, electric fires and even electric kettles (for those people
who use a kettle to make coffee or tea) are fed from phase-to-phase rather
than the normal phase-to-neutral, to avoid needing heavier-duty wiring to
supply the large amount of power from 120V.

Its very common in Australia which has the same 240V system Britain has.

Very common for those into the heavy end of DIY to have a
3 phase service for the bigger motors and welders etc and 2
phase is universal with the storage electrical heaters/heatbanks.

Does cost a little more for a 3 phase service but not a great deal more.

"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
"ARW" wrote in message
...
How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate, does
that make me ill mannered and unhelpful?

You could explain what info is contained on the cutout that is not
discernable at the consumer unit, and what info is legally required on a
certificate of installation. I for one have no idea what a cutout is,
despite having done a degree in electrical/electronic engineering. Maybe
it's common knowledge amongst electrical installers - but some of us
aren't, despite having more general technical knowledge.

It is better to give people info that they may or may not know than assume
that they know it and get cross when they don't.

Sorry to go on about it but it's a pet hate of mine - people who say to me
"you're doing it wrong - but I can't be bothered to explain where/why
you're wrong or what I want you to do differently" - and I was defending
the OP who I could sense was getting similarly narked.

It's like those people who say "just google it" without saying what phrase
will return just the relevant answers without lots of other guff.


Google for daft ****.

--
Adam

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:47:46 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:28:07 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:15:32 +0100, ARW

wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW

wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky
did
was
fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch on the
fusebox
inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he
was
going
to fill in an electrical installation certificate for the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that would
be
applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs to connect
to
is
in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements),

The earth will be available in the consumer unit. He connects to
that,
not in the meter box.

number and type of live conductors,

You can see in the consumer unit what is available. In this case, one
100A 240V conductor.

details of protective device.

Which is in the consumer unit.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

No surprise you got the bums rush so often.

In article ,
writes
On Saturday, 29 August 2015 11:12:21 UTC+1, nemo wrote:
On 29/08/2015 10:06, newshound wrote:
If the current electrician cannot advise, ...

... ask one with greater potential.

if your current one is resisting, or just lacks the capacity, induce a new one.


NT
This thread has just been transformed.
--
bert

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:51:44 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"NY" wrote in message
news
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and
bland
statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which don't
of
themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a certificate or
cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and we'll ask
someone
who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting
a
URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered
as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you
have
never seen]".


What long URL are you talking about?

As a matter of principal I am never rude to the OP as he is always polite
to
me (and he has some good sigs)

Well **** me, that doesn't normally happen. I tend to antagonise most
folk on newsgroups.

Spend a week with my apprentices:-).


How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate, does
that
make me ill mannered and unhelpful?

You said "the info" when you could have said what info it is.


I did say where the info was. And it is not at the CU.

--
Adam

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 22:20:39 +0100, ARW wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:51:44 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"NY" wrote in message
news "Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason
to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see what
breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means
**** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and
bland
statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which don't
of
themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a certificate or
cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us and we'll ask
someone
who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting
a
URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and ill-mannered
as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be bothered to explain
where/why you are wrong - you need to consult [documentation that you
have
never seen]".


What long URL are you talking about?

As a matter of principal I am never rude to the OP as he is always polite
to
me (and he has some good sigs)

Well **** me, that doesn't normally happen. I tend to antagonise most
folk on newsgroups.

Spend a week with my apprentices:-).

You want me to annoy them, or are you saying they would annoy me?

How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate, does
that
make me ill mannered and unhelpful?

You said "the info" when you could have said what info it is.

I did say where the info was. And it is not at the CU.

You're just giving mild hints which require research. Just spill it.

--
Marriage changes passion. Suddenly you're in bed with a relative.

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news

Well **** me, that doesn't normally happen. I tend to antagonise most
folk on newsgroups.

Spend a week with my apprentices:-).

You want me to annoy them, or are you saying they would annoy me?


Dunno.

Either option is possible.


--
Adam

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 22:36:19 +0100, ARW wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news

Well **** me, that doesn't normally happen. I tend to antagonise most
folk on newsgroups.

Spend a week with my apprentices:-).

You want me to annoy them, or are you saying they would annoy me?

Dunno.

Either option is possible.

All you're interested in is them annoying you less.

--
A waiter brings the customer the steak he ordered with his thumb over the meat.
"Are you crazy?" yelled the customer, "with your hand on my steak?"
"What" answers the waiter, "You want it to fall on the floor again?"

On Saturday, 29 August 2015 16:32:13 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 15:25:50 +0100, Bob Minchin wrote:

Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 13:42:47 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
My father has said he has a 415V sticker on the feed into his meter
box.
From what he's told me there is the normal arrangement of master fuse,
meter, then into the house to the consumer unit. The house was
built in
1985ish and is detached. I've never seen inside the meterbox myself,
only the consumer unit, which looked like a normal run of the mill row
of circuit breakers with one master at the end, 100A. If there were
three phases in the meterbox I'd expect his description to include a
lot
more.

You don't need three phase for 415v - only two. And at one point it was
common to install two phases to allow electric heating.

Was that not split phase?

It is not the same thing as two lines from a 3 phase as you have 460V
on a
split line.

Rarer than a 15 year old virgin in Rotherham but they do exist.

This is in the Scottish Highlands and the house was built around 1985.
Is it likely to have two phases there? It's not in the middle of
nowhere, it's in a village with about 400 houses.

It is possible that the original owner had 3 phase installed complete
with appropriate meter to power his interests. A subsequent owner would
have then been faced with a higher standing charge and possibly reduced
options when shopping around for lower tariffs and so it would have been
economic (and possibly free) to have the meter changed to single phase.

The way to tell would be to look for three phase and neutral coming in
and the probability of two empty fuse carriers with wires going in and
none coming out.

One has to wonder at the abilities of the sparky who could not have seen
that for himself!!

I've just checked my own meter box, and my master fuse has a 415V rating on it! I definitely only have one phase. Very strange. Why would a master fuse need a 415V rating? If I had three phases, surely I'd have three fuses, one on each phase, so they'd still only need to be rated at 240V each.

--
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's intolerance.

Many electrical items are marked with the MAXIMUM voltage they are suitable for.
That doesn't mean that they are actually running at that voltage.

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message news

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 20:09:43 +0100, Fredxxx wrote:
snip

Idiot. I asked a simple question. The only reason for this thread is to
find out if my father has three phases.

Oh ****. Why didn't you say so?
Connect him to a three phase machine. If it works, he's got three phases and
you've got a source of free energy.

HTH

In article , ARW
wrote:
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:28:07 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 18:15:32 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 17:20:18 +0100, ARW
wrote:

I have no reason to believe a sparky went in there, all a sparky
did was fit an electric shower, switching off the master switch
on the fusebox inside the house would have sufficed.

Well the sparks would need to see what sort of supply it was if he
was going to fill in an electrical installation certificate for
the shower.

What information could he possibly get from the meter box that
would be applicable to installing a shower? Everything he needs
to connect to is in the consumer unit, and labelled for him.

Let's see.

Type of supply (ie earthing arrangements),

The earth will be available in the consumer unit. He connects to
that, not in the meter box.

number and type of live conductors,

You can see in the consumer unit what is available. In this case,
one 100A 240V conductor.

details of protective device.

Which is in the consumer unit.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral, see
what breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is
sufficient.



I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info means
**** all to your question


This house has a 3 phase cutout. Until we sufffered a loss of supply in
the road last summer I assumed we had a 3 phase supply. It turned out we
only had 2 phases incoming. No idea why.

--
Please note new email address:

In article , harry
wrote:
On Saturday, 29 August 2015 14:19:08 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 10:06:26 +0100, newshound
wrote:

On 29/08/2015 01:17, wrote:
On Saturday, 29 August 2015 00:13:19 UTC+1, Tough Guy no. 1265
wrote:
My father has said he has a 415V sticker on the feed into his meter
box. From what he's told me there is the normal arrangement of
master fuse, meter, then into the house to the consumer unit. The
house was built in 1985ish and is detached. I've never seen inside
the meterbox myself, only the consumer unit, which looked like a
normal run of the mill row of circuit breakers with one master at
the end, 100A. If there were three phases in the meterbox I'd
expect his description to include a lot more. Now the previous
owner did have an ironwork hobby with "high powered equipment", but
he was a very frugal sort and I doubt he would have got three
phases installed if he didn't absolutely have to - mind you I
believe he was the first owner of the house and designed it
himself, so maybe it's just as cheap to get three phases when
building the property? The reason this has come up is they've just
had a 10kW electric shower fitted (used to run from the hot water
tank, but that one wa
s
old and leaky) and are considering replacing their ageing oil
boiler with an electric one, which the electrician fitting the
shower warned would require a relay to switch off the boiler so it
didn't run at the same time as the shower as he'd run out of juice.
When he saw 415V he was wondering if he infact had more phases
available.

clear piccy wanted


NT


Ignore BM, this is the right answer. You could well be right, there
might or might not be 3 phase available. If the current electrician
cannot advise, then you need someone who works on (small) industrial
sites. Sounds like perhaps the 3 phase meter has been taken out and
replaced with a single phase one.

If he (or I but I'm not up there) really wanted to know, it's easy
enough to peek around and use a multimeter. But at the moment it's
just a matter of interest for a possible future electric boiler
installation. I was just wondering if houses ever had more than one
phase installed or if you had to ask for it.



Some houses were supplied with three phases if there was an abnormally
high load or a workshop attached with maybe three phase motors or
welders. In some cases if there were electric storage heaters. But his
was for quite big houses.

But quite unusual. You need to see if there are four wires entering the
premises or two. The cutout will have three fuses if it is a three phase
supply.

that only applies to overhead wiring. Here there is multicore cable coming
out of the ground and terminating in a cutout.

--
Please note new email address:

In article , ARW
wrote:
"NY" wrote in message
news
"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
Have a look at an electrical installation certificate.

Haven't got one, you tell me, you're the electrician. There is no
reason to need anything other than access to earth, live, neutral,
see what breakers are there or fit one, and check the amperage is
sufficient.

I have already told you. You need info from the cutout. The CU info
means **** all to your question

You're not telling me anything. In his CU the sparky would see the
amperage available to the house, the type of breakers in use, and have
access to live, neutral, and earth. He needs nothing more to fit a
shower.

ARW, if you know differently, please have the good manners to tell us
specifically where we are wrong, rather than resorting to abuse and
bland statements like "see the certificate" and "see the cutout" which
don't of themselves explain your reasoning if we've never seen a
certificate or cutout. If you can't be bothered to explain, tell us
and we'll ask someone who can.

And tell us the specific points that you are making rather than quoting
a URL to a long document which has the info embedded somewhere with it.

As a matter of principle. I would never be so unhelpful and
ill-mannered as to say (effectively) "you're wrong but I can't be
bothered to explain where/why you are wrong - you need to consult
[documentation that you have never seen]".


What long URL are you talking about?

As a matter of principal I am never rude to the OP as he is always polite
to me (and he has some good sigs)

How more helpful could I be? I said that the cutout gives the electrical
installer the info needed to fill in an installation certificate,

my cutout has no information on it at all. - apart from the fact that it
was "Made in England" by Henley. I know from experience that is a 3 phase
unit.

--
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On 29/08/2015 19:48, Fredxxx wrote:
On 29/08/2015 16:35, newshound wrote:

If you hacksaw into it, you might be able to see how many conductors
there are.

Report back when you've counted them.

I think I asked a perfectly reasonable question. Adam seemed to be
asserting that the cabling was there to the board, which surprised me a
little.

Apologies, I initially thought I was reply to woosyguy's post!

To be honest the only way you could tell would be from the size of the
cable entering the building and it's type and rating.

I would have thought each phase would have been properly terminated and
not just cut.

No problem. There's no obvious writing on my incomer. It goes into a PME
box which looks big enough to terminate two spare phases. It would be
trivial to open it, but I have no need for 3 phase or more than 100
Amps, I was just interested.

En el artículo , NY
escribió:

Is three-phase (or at least two-phase or split-phase) wiring common in
domestic UK environments?

One of my properties, an old Victorian semi converted into two flats,
has a 3-phase supply coming into the hall cupboard in the downstairs
flat. One phase is used for downstairs and another for upstairs. The
third is unused.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) Bunny says: Windows 10? Nein danke!
(")_(")

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 22:36:19 +0100, ARW
wrote:

"Tough Guy no. 1265" wrote in message
news

Well **** me, that doesn't normally happen. I tend to antagonise most
folk on newsgroups.

Spend a week with my apprentices:-).

You want me to annoy them, or are you saying they would annoy me?

Dunno.

Either option is possible.

All you're interested in is them annoying you less.


It would be a good start.

BTW the thick one has quit. He got a bollocking for doing **** work and
lying and he walked out halfway through the bollocking.

He will not be missed.

--
Adam