Oven/Hob/Hood connections

I am replacing a free standing electric cooker with a built in electri

oven and gas hob and adding an extractor hood. If the oven is supplie from the existing cooker supply (32A dedicated circuit) can the hob an hood also come off this via fused connections or must they come off th ring main (via FCUs or 13A sockets)?

I am asking as there would be a considerable difference between them i ease of installation for an electrician due to the proximity of the rin main (bathroom above - difficult to access under floor to drop dow cables). I'd like to know in advance what size of job it is likely t be.

Sorry if this has been asked before but I couldn't find this questio specifically.

Thanks for any advice

-- ReggieP

Reply to
ReggieP
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To stay conventional, the hob and hood would come off the kitchen ring circuit, most usually via FCUs; the electric oven, being a Fixed Appliance, is more or less required to have its own dedicated circuit. Whilst calculation might well show that your oven circuit has plenty of spare capacity (gas hob will take trivial power, extractor hood not muvh more (0.5A typically), and you *could* do perfectly effective isolation for each of these appliances (cooker-isolator, and FCUs for the hob and extractor), you might find a conventionally-minded electrician sniffing at such additions to the cooker radial: even more so if you wire them off the back of the cooker-control switch using 4mmsq, even though (for short lengths) they're in fact adequately protected against short-circuit by a 32A MCB and don't need closer overload protection...

The 'surprise' of finding hob and extractor supply not on the kitchen ring could be partly reduced by (a) labelling, and (b) using neon-indicator FCUs to make it clear to the most electrically-illiterate fiddler that they're still powered up when they pop the 'Downstairs Ring' MCB. If you go this non-standard route, though, be SURE to use FCUs and not 13A sockets: with the FCUs you know what load is being put on the circuit, with a 13A socket you never know when someone's going plug a kettle, iron, or other higher-load device in!

Are there no sockets close to your hob from which spurred or added-to-ring FCUs could be run, rather than ripping up the bathroom flooring?

Reply to
Stefek Zaba

Thanks for the reply, Stefek. The only suitable sockets on the ring ar horizontal from the cooker but the route to them would run behind th sink unit, passing under a window, so I didn't think it would be goo practice to run a cable that way. As 2 new outlets are required i would have to be an extension of the ring, not a spur wouldn't it?

Anyway, the electrician is a friend of mine but he is on holiday at th moment - I'll see when he gets back what he would rather do. I jus thought that if the route from the bathroom was the only permissibl way then I could do the preparatory work in advance and save a bit o time later

-- ReggieP

Reply to
ReggieP

Yes, wire them all into the old cooker circuit. No problems at all. Don't use sockets/plugs, but FCUs. Ensure the correct fuses are used. Cooker hoods and hobs are sufficiently fixed to not be run off a socket circuit. Indeed, I run many more appliances off dedicated radial circuits, including fridge freezer, washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher. In my case, however, I decided to run the cooker oven off the main ring, largely because with all the other fixed appliances offloaded, there is loads of spare capacity off it, and only the 2nd oven will be electric. Grill, main oven and hob are gas.

When installing, check the oven rating. It may need to be fused at a particular level (i.e. 13A, 16A or 20A). Ensure this is done, either using an FCU (for 13A) or by dropping the MCB to that level. Some will be perfectly happy at 32A, but if it comes with a conventional plug, you MUST use a 13A FCU (unless instructions specifically allow 16A MCB instead, as would be the case in a European installation).

However, even if the oven allows 32A, it is still safer to drop the MCB to the next value over the sum of the appliances you have installed. (i.e. 13A for the oven, 3A for the extractor, 0A for the gas hob means you could run off a 16A MCB, which is more likely to trip in a fault condition than an oversized 32A, oven if this would be technically allowed).

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

"ReggieP" wrote | As 2 new outlets are required it would have to be an extension | of the ring, not a spur wouldn't it?

You may install one double-socket-outlet, but not two single-socket-outlets, as an unfused spur. The alternative would be a 3A fused spur for the hob and hood, which would not need further fusing down.

Reply to
Owain

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