2nd kitchen circuit??

[chrispvholmes]

No external sockets at the front of the house, so cement mixer tends to get plugged in to one of the kitchen sockets.

[Brian Reay]

An induction hob can require one of its own- ours has one.

[ARW]

ISTR that the oven specified a 16A or 20A MCB.

TBH in the grand scale of a rewire an extra 12m of 2.5 T&E, a 20A DP switch and a RCBO is not a lot of money or extra work.

She spent a lot more on the smokes, heat and CO alarms (3 optical smokes, 1 ionisation smoke and 1 combined heat/CO detector). An easy upsell to a paramedic[1] that has attended burning houses and CO deaths:-)

[1] I do a lot of work at ambulance stations and I have never seen so many people who smoke.

[ARW]

I suggest that that the fridge, freezer or the fridge freezer should be on the same RCBO as the TV in social housing.

That way they will notice if something trips:-)

[spuorgelgoog]

But they'd notice the light not coming on when they go to get more beer while watching telly anyway.

Owain

[Steve Walker]

I think that when I move the cooker connection from one side of our kitchen to the other, it'll cope with both hob and double oven with no problem - thanks to being supplied via a length of 16mm2 T&E.

Well, it was free when I put it in 26 years ago!

SteveW

[Robin]

With all these separate circuits do you find the sheer size of the new CU becomes an issue with some rewires? (The CU here is under the stairs which ought to make it easy but the location of the incomer, meter board and CH pipes means I'm leaning towards stacking 2 CUs to be sure of enough ways next time.)

I fitted 5 in this 3 bed terrace after seeing how long it could take for smoke to spread.

[Mike Clarke]

And lose the dedicated supply to the freezer with the risk that a fault on the tumble drier trips the ring and defrosts the frozen food.

[Steve Walker]

That's not something that would worry me. If the ring trips due to the tumble dryer, the food will remain frozen for 12 hours or more and I'm not likely to leave the tumble dryer running and go away.

The bigger problem is an installation like mine, with a whole house RCD. With a large number of electronic devices, with leaky filters on their supplies, a random trip at any time is possible.

When I have some more money to hand, I'll look at converting to RCBOs, spreading the leakage and reducing the chance of trips, but they're not cheap for Crabtree Starbreaker consumer units.

SteveW

[John Rumm]

I quite often go for multiple CUs - not only for adequate numbers of ways, but it can also make sense to have them "purposed" - say like here house circuits on one, and outside / outbuilding circuits on another.

[John Rumm]

You may find the cost of a set of RCBO + a new CU is less than the cost of the Crabtree RCBOs on their own.

[Robin]

Thanks for that.

JOOI, where do you stand on 2 CUs with separate "master switches"[1]? I admit one of the attractions for me would be the ability to plod ever-so-slowly at changes on one's circuits while power is provided by t'other for essential devices (modem, router, PCs, kettle, boiler etc) - with injudicial use of extension leads where necessary.

[1] I already have an isolator after the meter that I'd label as the real Master Switch

[ARW]

Well an all RCBO CU does away with 4 modules of a dual RCD CU. That was one of the reasons I fitted an all RCBO install in this case and I still had to move the cutout and the meter a bit to get the new CU in (ISTR it was 12 way).

A double stacked CU would have worked.

BTW I am a fan of putting the smokes on with the lights for the obvious reasons. The top tip of the day though is to feed the smokes via a labelled DP keyswitch so that you can isolate the smokes for maintenance and leave the lights on.

[Robin]

Thanks.

[tabbypurr]

I thought that was no longer allowed

[stephenten]

Another thing could be to fit a battery powered mains failure alarm on the same circuit as the smokes....

In any case, i have the house alarm and CCTV on the same RCBO as the smokes.

The smokes are also wired in as a 24 hour zone on the alarm panel and ditto for the CO detectors.

So when there is a power cut. The alarm keypads sound internally and I get an email message from the alarm panel.

[John Rumm]

In my installation I installed a stand alone enclosure with a DP switch in it, and labelled that as "Main Switch". Tails from that feed a service connector block, thence CUs. However that is a permanent setup, not a transitional arrangement.

It avoids any doubt for someone needing to isolate in an emergency.

For just migrating from one CU to another I would not be worried about only having the individual switching on the CUs.

Even as a permanent install it would probably be ok in most cases, so long as the occupants are aware of the arrangement.

[ARW]

It in fashion this season with NICEIC. Need I say any more?

[ARW]

The Veritas alarm sirens give a fire siren sound if the the smokes linked to the alarm activate.

[Bob Eager]

I did the same. Mine is outboard of the meter, though.