advice require about wiring of fitted electric oven

[Davey P]

Hi everyone

Just looking for a bit of advice about the wiring of an electric oven (which has a separate gas hob)...

I recently bought a house that came with a fairly modern fitted kitchen.

Last week I needed an extra plug socket adding to the lounge and got a local electrician in to do the job. After he had removed the fuse for the downstairs mains ring circuit, I noticed that the electric oven also went off. I mentioned this to the electrician (because I'd always assumed ovens had to be on their own separate thicker cable) and he said that it wasn't safe to use the oven as it would be drawing too much power from the ring circuit.

Anyway, I've since spoken to a few more people who are either electricians or know about home electrics and they are saying the opposite! Although there's nothing wrong with having the oven on a separate circuit, our oven is in fact safe to use on the mains ring. We've certainly not had any problems using it since we moved into the house 7 months ago.

Could anyone please give me some more advice?

The mains ring circuit is rated 30amp, with a 30amp fuse in the fusebox. The oven is wired in to the circuit via a spur and has it's own 13amp fuse. The wiring of the spur is correct.

The oven is a Homark (model 700105) with the following specs:

conventional oven: 1.8kW full width grill: 1.8kW bottom element: 1.0kW top element: 0.8kW oven fan: 0.03kW

...to my mind, the most we could use is about 1.8kW (either with the grill on full, or the top/bottom elements on, of the conv oven on).

Are we safe to use the oven?

Many many thanks for any help!

regards Davey P

[Christian McArdle]

It will probably be absolutely fine. When my cooker goes in, the electric oven will be off the ring main. However, you may have issues if the ring is already highly loaded. In my case, the ring will only supply sockets for portable appliances in the kitchen and the oven. All laundry appliances and the dishwasher have their own circuit. This means that the 1.8kW load is almost the only thing on there. Other high loads will be transient, such as kettles, irons, toasters etc.

The 1.8kW load of your oven won't even be full time. Once the oven is up to temperature, the thermostat turns the elements off. The duty cycle might not be that high.

Christian.

[David W.E. Roberts]

If the fuse rating is correct for the oven, then surely it is fine on a normal circuit which has 13 Amp plugs? Subject to the maximum number of plugs per circuit, of course :-)

[Christian McArdle]

One thing that really would improve safety is to replace this museum piece with a proper consumer unit with MCBs and RCBOs (or an RCD).

Christian.

[Davey P]

Cheers for all the replies :-)

We're saving up to do some improvements to the house, which will include getting a modern unit fitted - preferably not in the cellar, which is accessed via a trapdoor and means moving furniture!

The only appliances that we've got downstairs that would draw a lot of power from the ring would be the washing machine, tumble dryer, a microwave combi oven, and a kettle - so I'll make sure we don't have them all going on full whack at the same time!

regards Davey P

[Christian McArdle]

When you have the consumer unit replaced, consider installing a 32A radial for the laundry appliances.

Christian.

[Bob Eager]

[BillR]

I believe this is fine. Where you would need a separate heavier cable would be for an elec hob which potentially can take far more current.