i m fitting a new kitchen and it includes a build in electric oven hob and cooker hood. the cooker socket is half way up the wall not far from where the cooker hood is being fitted. so the cooker socker needs to be hidden lower down behind the cooker. is the a way to do it without taking all the plaster off the wall? i think the wire runs down. so do i just get a 45a rated 3 way junction box. put the wire form the cooker socket into that then another wire from the junction box to the cooker socket to extend it. then sink all into wall apart from cooker socket. thanks jason
not quite, it's not acceptable to bury a junction box in the wall like that as it's not accessible for maintenance. you would have to have a removable cover plate
It's slightly possible that the cable is run in conduit, and there is enough slack above to pull sown the cable, though I doubt you could pull down the thickness of cable likely if this is a cooker circuit.
I think it's is acceptable to extend the cable in the way you suggest, but you need to use a permanent joint. Easiest thing here is to use crimps to make the joints. Use insulated crimps, joint the cable then cover in heat shrink tubing. Use a proper ratchet crimp tool not a pair of pliers . You can reasonable ones for about GBP10 - 15
A google groups search on Crimping joints will turn up previous discussions on this.
You don't need a junction box but you should put a cooker switch where the socket is and a cooker outlet lower down behind the oven. A built-in oven needs to be wired in permanently and not plugged into a socket. The hob can be connected the same way. You'll probably want to chase the cable into the wall and tile over it behind the hob. External trunking won't look very nice and isn't a good idea behind the hob anyway.
The hood doesn't take much current so you can use a normal 13 amp socket on the ring main (or on a spur).
I'm not suggesting you are completely wrong, but can you tell me why this should be? In some ways I'd have thought it quite a good idea to have an oven on a socket - most single built-in ovens only draw between
2 and 3kW anyway. I've done this with our "cooker" circuit: 32A, 6mm2 cable to Big Red Switch, but the other side of the switch is 6mm2 cable running to a double 13A socket, one for the 2kW oven, one for the hob ignition. In many ways this is just a standard 32A radial circuit which has the potential for easy upgrade in the future to cater for an electric hob if necessary.
In the OP's case I'll concede that he is actually talking about an electric hob and the standard solution I've seen is to wire hob and oven in parallel to the cooker circuit outlet. Wiring the hob to the BRS and using the outlet's socket for the oven means you have to show that the currents add up, as the standard discrimination rule of "... plus 5A if the control unit incorporates a socket outlet" is obviously going to be broken in the case of a 2kW oven.
Saw a 90mm range cooker (gas hob/electric oven) the other day with a moulded-on plug.
Using a socket for the oven makes for easier maintenance (just pull the plug out to release the oven) and also provides some degree of discrimination: a fault in (say) the oven should blow the 13A plug fuse before the 32A main breaker.
It is also analogous to built-in appliances of other types which often have heaters of 2kW or so and are often plugged into a socket (or fused outlet) below worktop height which is controlled by a 20A switch above the worktop.
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Hmmm... and probably not a good idea to do as I have seen recently where the (0.5mm2?) 2-core flex from the fan had been taken down behind the tiles and connected into the electric hob's terminals.
As you say there is no reason why a single over with a rating of less than
13A should not be plugged into a ring socket.
As for supply both and elecric hob and the oven from a 32A radial this is not a problem either. Whilst the total current draw for both appliances may well be 50A diversity rules come info force. Which IIRC for a domestic kitchen are 100% of the first 10A of full total load + 30% of the remainder. That would make 22A expected load, in fact you would have just enough capacity to wire a double socket (5A each) as well.
The difference is that ovens like hoods and hobs are fixed appliances and are required by the regs to be permantly connected via double pole isolation (fused if necessary) which does not break the earth conductor. Plugtops are for portable things you move around not fixed appliances. The range cooker you mention is not built in and maybe moved so is connected with flexible gas hose and a plugtop.
No plugtops are for portable appliances regs require fixed appliances to be connected permantly with double pole isolation that does not break the earth conductor.
Care to define fixed and portable? I've got an electric toothbrush which (the 'base station') is fixed to the wall. Should that be earth bonded and isolated via a double pole switch? A wall mounted electric can opener?
"Fixed equipment: Equipment designed to be fastened to a support or otherwise secured in a specific location
"Portable equipment: Electrical equipment which is moved while in operation or which can easily be moved from one place to another while connected to the supply."
AFAICT chapter 46 is the main control, and this doesn't seem to make any distinction between fixed and portable equipment for the purposes of isolation and switching.
476-03-04 implies that fixed equipment can be connected by plug-and-socket:
"Every fixed or stati "This means may be incorporated in the appliance..."
Which might be taken as implying that (say) a dishwasher with a real switch can be wired into the circuit without an external double-pole switch :-)
476-03-04 relates to equipment which may give rise to a hazard in normal use, so you'd need to be careful about its application. It also relates to switching for safety.
Chapter 537 states (without reference to fixed and portable equipment) that, apart from switching for emergencies, "A plug and socket-outlet of rating not exceeding 16A may be used as a switching device."
Peter: I've spent a mere 20 minutes looking and may have missed the regulation. Can you point me in the direction of the regulation which requires "fixed" equipment to be connected *only* by permanent (i.e. not plug and socket) means? How does this relate to built-in appliances in the kitchen (washer, dishwosh, fridge, freezer, u-wave etc. etc. etc.) or indeed elsewhere (a built-in TV, a projector permanently fixed to a stand, a central vaccuum system, a low-voltage lighting system with wall-wart power supply etc. etc. etc.)?
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