momist
Junior Member
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2011
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Hi everyone.
I'm hoping for some nice gentle advice. I am commanded to refurbish our kitchen, and this entails a new cooker and cooker hood on a different wall and all new cupboards. The cooker is a dual fuel, 13A for the warming oven and gas for everything else including the main oven. The house is a 1960s build, with a new kitchen fitted some 33 years ago and some other additional wiring that was added before we bought it. The kitchen furniture has sockets on the hardboard backs with T&E drooped between - which will be corrected.
I have spent all today tracing the main ring circuit, in order to try to plan the new wiring layout of the kitchen, and have found that, mainly, it is all in one big ring which wanders erratically up and down stairs, and which has been extended for an additional bedroom and a conservatory. The "other" 30 Amp breaker is on a radial circuit which mysteriously serves an odd socket here and there, the bathroom shaver socket (via isolation transformer) and the garage. I can't identify where most of these wires are run.
All the wiring is run in the plaster under galvanised top hat, or amongst the joists as usual. Now come the problems:
1. The existing service is from an old Wylex fuse box retro fitted with mini trips. 2 off 30A for the ring and radial. 1 off 10A for the lighting. There is also the 10mm feed to the electric shower, on its own 40A MCB.
2. The lighting circuit is wired in singles, and has no CPC.
3. In the kitchen there is a single socket in the middle of the wall above where the hob will be, needing a tiled splash back. IT MUST be moved.
4. The original wiring is the PVC sheathed, 7 strand, 6mm equivalent that was used in the 60's. The later power stuff is all to current spec, except that everything is red and black.
See the attached photos. Note, today I also added green/yellow sleeving to _every_ CPC at every socket. This photo was "as found", and shows a ring with a spur off.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/218346/Kitchen/DSC03211.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/218346/Kitchen/DSC03203.JPG
Questions:
a) Can I employ a sparky to just re-wire the kitchen, or will he not be able to certify because its all on one big single ring?
B) If I can split the ring in two in an attempt to separate out the kitchen, is it OK to leave the conservatory and a socket in another room on the kitchen ring? All other rooms would be left in a second ring, and there'd still be a radial to the garage.
c) A new CU is a "very good idea"
I'm hoping for some nice gentle advice. I am commanded to refurbish our kitchen, and this entails a new cooker and cooker hood on a different wall and all new cupboards. The cooker is a dual fuel, 13A for the warming oven and gas for everything else including the main oven. The house is a 1960s build, with a new kitchen fitted some 33 years ago and some other additional wiring that was added before we bought it. The kitchen furniture has sockets on the hardboard backs with T&E drooped between - which will be corrected.
I have spent all today tracing the main ring circuit, in order to try to plan the new wiring layout of the kitchen, and have found that, mainly, it is all in one big ring which wanders erratically up and down stairs, and which has been extended for an additional bedroom and a conservatory. The "other" 30 Amp breaker is on a radial circuit which mysteriously serves an odd socket here and there, the bathroom shaver socket (via isolation transformer) and the garage. I can't identify where most of these wires are run.
All the wiring is run in the plaster under galvanised top hat, or amongst the joists as usual. Now come the problems:
1. The existing service is from an old Wylex fuse box retro fitted with mini trips. 2 off 30A for the ring and radial. 1 off 10A for the lighting. There is also the 10mm feed to the electric shower, on its own 40A MCB.
2. The lighting circuit is wired in singles, and has no CPC.
3. In the kitchen there is a single socket in the middle of the wall above where the hob will be, needing a tiled splash back. IT MUST be moved.
4. The original wiring is the PVC sheathed, 7 strand, 6mm equivalent that was used in the 60's. The later power stuff is all to current spec, except that everything is red and black.
See the attached photos. Note, today I also added green/yellow sleeving to _every_ CPC at every socket. This photo was "as found", and shows a ring with a spur off.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/218346/Kitchen/DSC03211.JPG
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/218346/Kitchen/DSC03203.JPG
Questions:
a) Can I employ a sparky to just re-wire the kitchen, or will he not be able to certify because its all on one big single ring?
B) If I can split the ring in two in an attempt to separate out the kitchen, is it OK to leave the conservatory and a socket in another room on the kitchen ring? All other rooms would be left in a second ring, and there'd still be a radial to the garage.
c) A new CU is a "very good idea"
, if cables are imobalised by the plaster etc and no danger occurs from contact between the metal backbox then grommets can be excused from duty in this instance.
