cooker cable runs and 17th ed wiring regs.

Apr 29, 2014 8 Replies

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Stephen 12 years ago

As I understand it, there are permitted routes for buried cables, i.e. vertically or horizontally from an electrical accessory or within 50mm of a room corner/edge.

Now consider a cooker. Most cooker isolator switches are installed between the adjacent base unit and adjacent wall cupboard, so its always to one side of the cooker rather than above it for safety reasons involing burns and water ingress itno the isolator switch.

So far so good as a cooker cable from the CU can be made to go to this isolator swtich vertically or horizontally.

Now consider cooker outlet box. These are often placed behind a cooker, particularly free standing ones.....

So does this mean that one cannot run the cable between the isolator switch and the cooker outlet plate diagonally but running aross then down or down and then across is OK?

bending 6mm2 cooker cable into 90 degrees and keeping it flat is going to be interesting!

Having said that, I have stripped out kitchens in the past and found a diagonal run of 6mm2 cable from teh cooker isolator switch and the cooker outlet plate.....

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Tim Watts 12 years ago

Yes - in a nutshell :)

2 options:

Make the chase deeper and:

1) Don't make the cable lie flat;

2) 25mm conduit with a formed bend and pull singles through. They are more flexible in the cores and without the sheath are even more flexible again.

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John Rumm 12 years ago

Within 150mm of a corner and also the wall to ceiling intersection.

Like :

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Yup

Yes - that way the cable is always in a vertical or horizontal zone aligned with the visible accessories.

No need to keep it flat really - it also does not need to be particularly sharp bend.

Yup, you can find all kinds of poor practice if you go looking. No need to copy it though ;-)

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Andy Burns 12 years ago

That's right, you can't if it's buried. didn't stop the builder of my house doing it though.

How about running from the CU to the switch following the permitted zones (e.g. entering horizontally buried in the plaster) then come out of the switch (e.g dropping vertically buried in plaster) then once it's out of sight, bring the cable to surface and run it diagonally clipped to the surface to reach a surface mounted outlet box?

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newshound 12 years ago

You are still permitted buried diagonal runs with suitable mechanical protection, aren't you?

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Tim Watts 12 years ago

Yes.

That usually means steel conduit, MICC or SWA.

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Fredxxx 12 years ago

I thought 3mm of steel is also considered adequate?

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Adam Funk 12 years ago

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Tim Watts 12 years ago

That too - if it's practical?

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