The picture at
It also shows consumer's switchgear (feeding the shed submain) mounted on the supplier's meter board, which I thought was not allowed.
Also convert to TT earthing and re-arrange the shed supply in a slightly more sanitary fashion.
As I suspected, PME IS not allowed for the supply of caravans, only TN-S or TT. I would check the postion regarding fixed homes, if the combined neutral and earth breaks all the metle work, includeing the exterior will become LIVE.... Reg 608-13-05 A chat with the supply company may be required.
I'm getting a tad confused here, but are you under the impression that the home I am refering to has a metal frame? It's similiar to something like this..
This particular type of park home is not mobile as such, it sits on axle-type stands, and is raised about 2 feet from the ground.
I take it that the supply is perfectly adequate for this type of construction?
Running an oven circuit was my only concern :-)
Appreciate all the replies though.
Garry
"garryb59" wrote | >As I suspected, PME IS not allowed for the supply of caravans, only TN-S or | >TT. I would check the postion regarding fixed homes, if the combined neutral | >and earth breaks all the metle work, includeing the exterior will become | >LIVE.... Reg 608-13-05 A chat with the supply company may be required. | I'm getting a tad confused here, but are you under the impression that | the home I am refering to has a metal frame? It's similiar to | something like this.. |
It will probably have a metal frame underneath the plywood.
| This particular type of park home is not mobile as such, it sits on | axle-type stands, and is raised about 2 feet from the ground.
Park homes *are* mobile in that they (originally) have little wheels attached for manouvering them in to position, which enables them to claim they are a caravan. Some people have put their park homes on polystyrene blocks so in the event of the park flooding the home floats.
| I take it that the supply is perfectly adequate for this type of | construction?
The point is that it is either a building, in which case it complies with Building Regs and you must too -- including Part P OR it is a caravan complying with different regulations. You can't claim exemption from one set of standards without complying with the other.
Owain
"caravan."
Yes. Ignore what I said about converting to TT earthing.
You need to establish the rating of the oven and whether, as many do, it comes with a fitted 13A plug.
If it's rated at under 3kW then you don't necessarily need a new circuit, just connect it into the existing socket (ring) circuit unless there's any reason to believe that this would lead to the circuit being overloaded. The connection can be made to an existing or new 13A socket, or via a fused connection unit (with 13A fuse).
If the rating is over 3kW then you will need a new circuit of appropriate rating - consult the oven instructions. Now things get more complicated because the existing consumer unit has all its circuits connected via a single 30mA RCD, a practice which is no longer recommended. The ideal solution would be to replace the CU with a new split-load one with all circuits except the sockets on the non-RCD side and just the sockets RCD protected. (This needs a minimum of 9 modules width, so the existing 8-module unit can't be upgraded.)
The alternative (cheat's) solution is just to fit another MCB in one of the spare ways. You shouldn't have too much difficulty getting a replacement busbar, just try ringing around the local wholesalers to find one who handles GE stuff.
I don't recommend combining the two lighting circuits into one, even though, as you say, the current rating is not likely to be a problem. With two circuits you don't lose all the lighting if one MCB trips (as it may, when a 'bulb goes'). With elderly people involved you have to remember that "safety" here extends beyond electrical safety; the risk of trips and falls in the dark also has to be considered. (This is of course a potent argument for converting the CU to split-load, so that you get the lights off the RCD.)
HTH
And what you say here...
...is exactly what keeps coming back to me . So a new split load CU it is. Plus, talking to him today, he's looking to expand the number of sockets throughout the place[of which there are few] , so I'll run a new ring for the kitchen[with dedicated fridge] and another ring for the rest of the place. At the end of the day, if a job's worth doing etc..
It most certainly does.
cheers Garry
If you do fit a split load unit you WILL need to change the consumerunit next to the meter, otherwise you will still have a 30mA trip feeding your main consumer unit.
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:56:20 +0000, garryb59 strung together this:
From looking at the pictures it would appear that the supply runs through a 63A MCB in the box outside so the main fuse isn't the only limiting factor in this. For the busbar, cobble it together with a bit of 6mm linked from an adjacent MCB, or buy some busbar from Hager. Depending what's in the enclosure in the outside meter box it could be easier to run the cooker supply from there. Personally, as the whole thing looks a bit suspect, I'd get someone in.
Yes, this dawned on me a few moments ago :-)
Could that RCD be replaced with a Hager 100mA, or am I missing the point here?
Still.... this is all preparatory work/thinking I'm doing for him before we decide what to do. I can at least run a few cables then get a sparky to do all the connecting. Rest assured, I'm not going to do anything I'm not completely confident of.
Curious minds relent, and I just like to know what's going on, so I can be reasonably confident he's not going to get stung.
Garry
Hmm, that's a good point - although we don't know for certain how that unit's wired inside. It could be that the RCD only protects the shed circuit - unlikely though, as the house supply presumably goes through the 63A MCB. We need a picture of its insides to be certain.
The simplest thing might be to put in a Henley block and feed the meter tails straight through to the house CU, leaving the shed supply unchanged. (The 63A MCB then becomes redundant.) Alternatively ditch the thing completely and feed the shed from its own RCBO in the new house CU - but that would involve re-routing the SWA shed cable.
I also meant to mention the apparent lack of any main equipotential bonding - rather important that with a PME supply. Is the plumbing all plastic with a plastic water main? Is there a gas supply?
It would have to be a time-delayed one (Type S) because it's (presumably) in cascade with the one in the house. But that wouldn't be acceptable if it's protecting any sockets in the shed, unless you installed another 30mA RCD in the shed - recycle the old house CU in the shed perhaps.
Why not keep the existing shed CU, but rewire it such that it is fed from a breaker/HBC fuse on the non RCD side of the main CU (rather than the other way round as it is now)?
That way you can have the shed CU protected by its own 30mA trip RCD as it currently is, without needing to worry about cascased RCDs etc.
That's certainly another possibility, but would make the location of the shed CU, on the supplier's meter board, look even more odd.
Of course the best place for the shed RCD is inside the shed but I've hesitated to suggest moving it to there for fear of opening another can of worms - the need to check for earth fault protection on the SWA cable, to start with...
;-) was thinking that way myself... how bigger a deal it is depends on how much time someone will spend working with power tools in the shed at night I suppose. The "quick fix" would be keep it at the head end and stick a battery maintained light in the shed.
Hi Andy/James not sure if you're still there or not but here goes anyway :-)
Ok....as you suspected.
Ah yes, the gas at the moment is propane. There's gas in the village but not to the park yet. The previous owner has 4 large propane cylinders rigged up round the back - a real eye sore. This setup is going to be changed, along with the boiler, with the installation of an equally ugly mega-massive permanant cyclinder that sits in the garden that gets topped up automatically by the gas company every so often.
The water [I'm pretty sure] is MDPE into the house [house dates from
1996], but I've seen copper pipes around the place too[bathroom and the rads] so it's definitely not all plastic. I haven't had chance to look at too much of this yet.cheers Garry
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 17:56:20 +0000, garryb59 strung together this:
I would probably remove the CU in the meter cupboard altogether. The SWA isn't made off properly anyway so make that off into a suitably sized galv adaptable box and extend that cable with T&E to the existing CU inside.
The inside CU can be changed for a split load CU with the shed supply on it's own RCBO on the non-RCD side.
could be quite dangerous on a supply with a high fault level, but...
Yes exactly that - divert the meter tails from the top of the RCD into a
2-pole service connector block (Henley block)[*]. Recycle the 16mm^2 (I think) wires that currently go to the indoor CU and use them to connect from the block back to the top of the RCD, which will now feed the shed only. (The 63A MCB will now be redundant and the bottom right RCD terminal will only have the shed neutral in it. [*] Such as:See other bits of the thread and John Rumm's suggestions for alternative things to do with the shed supply. The Henley block is probably the path of least work, rather than that of greatest elegance - he said mindful of the fact that you only wanted to install an oven and are now close to rewiring the whole estate :-).
[Main bonding]Presumably there's a metal pipe bringing the LPG supply into the property - if so it should be bonded near the point of entry.
Again bond to the copper pipework as near as poss to the main stop-c*ck.
Just if you're interested, just for the record, talking to my father tonight, it has become clear why the supply is wired the way it is - the shed came before the house! This particular park home dates from
1996. Prior to that was another caravan type thingie [exactly what I've no idea], and this shed supply dates from *before* 1996. So that's why it's kind of back to front, the shed CU being the main unit and the house CU being almost like a sub-one.Once again, and for a final time thanks for your input Andy [and to everybody else for that matter!], it's appreciated.
cheers Garry
Someone got their priorities right then...
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