Query about cooker fitting.

[Elder]

Been a while since I fitted a cooker, and all the ones I've done had a length of cable coming out of the wall from behind the tiles below the main cooker switch.

But the house I've been to seems to have the cooker switch, then no cable, but two 3 pin sockets in the space for the cooker, flush with the wall and directly above the gas pipe, below the counter level. Not seen this before, is it normal/new practice?

Also, it looks like it had a range cooker in previously, so to check I measured the space. space looks to be 88.5cm wide.

All the ranges I've looked at have been 90cm which measure up at arround

89.5cm. Anyone know of a 6 burner dual fual range that is described as a 90cm but measures upto the 88.5com space I need?

[Owain]

*hopefully* if you remove the socket you will find it is fed by a cooker-sized cable controlled by the switch, so you need to replace the socket with a cooker outlet plate like this they usually come in single gang size so you might need to change the box

Have a look behind adjacent units in case the cooker outlet is hidden and what you are seeing is an ordinary power socket.

Owain

[Elder]

I haven't looked for an outlet box, never though to, I'm used to just finding the cable coming out from behind the tiles where it went direct into the switch, in older houses.

These are single individual sockets, both switchable, about 1 inch apart, about 18" off the floor behind where the cooker would go.

The rest of the kitchen has normal twin sockets.

I guess it is all a little academic anyway as I plan on going duel fuel, so I will need an engineer in to connect the gas so I might as well have the wiring sorted by someone who knows what they are doing at the same time.

[S Viemeister]

There are some dual-fuel cookers at 70cm or 80cm. Check Smeg, John Lewis, New World, Stoves.

[Usenet Nutter]

Single sockets are "normal" too...lol

Usually the cooker cable goes from the Consumer Unit to a switched unit ,with or without a socket,above the worktop and then goes to a cooker outlet ( sometimes called a Pigs Nose) below the worktop and a seperate piece of cable is used to connect the cooker to that outlet . Other reasons for sockets below the worktop could be ,for example,to connect an electric oven that uses a socket .

[Elder]

I realise that, but even an 80 is going to leave a sizeable gap arround it. I just wondered if anyone had seen a "90cm" that was that little bit smaller so I would have something to look for. From a quick measure up, in Currys there were all 89.5 or 90 dead.

[Steve Walker]

You might just squeeze an extra cupboard side and extended worktop in there (like we've done, although our extra space is a fraction wider), with a pullout towel rail to hold oven gloves and the like.

SteveW

[Elder]

It is a thought.

[Dave Liquorice]

Or mains driven clocks or ignition on a gas cooker.

[Elder]

That is what I figured, but without pulling the fronts of the socket to see how heavy duty the cable is, I won't know.

How normal is it for a range cooker to use one or two sockets? Is it 3kw that is the limit for a plug? Is it likely to find 2 power connectors, one for each oven so that the power is seperated and the load spread across each socket and isolated from each other, even though there is only one cooker main switch on the wall?

As I said before, I'm not familiar with newer standards for fitting cookers. The house I'm looking at is newer than any I've lived in/owned before (ex council semi), normally they have been turn of the century (19th/20th) so once they had been rewired to modern standards at whatever time, nothing much was changed, so it was normal to go straight from the switch to a long fly lead of heavy twin and earth which just dangled below the worktop after being plastered into the wall and tiled over. It was always a simple matter of popping the connector cover off the back of the cooker, wiring in three wires, clamping the cable and re-attaching the wiring cover and seeing if it powered up before pushing back into the cavity.

Now I'm learning about cookers with plugs on, CCUs and all sorts of new fangled stuff.

[Owain]

That is what you need to do!

No.

Owain