So what now.

If you are doing electrical work on a diy basis (that is not exempted from part P of the building regulations) then you submit a building notice to your local building control officer, before work commences.

If you are doing domestic electrical work on a professional basis then you can obtain a part P exemption through an approved training course (these are expensive) or do the same as the diy types and use building notices or full plans subissions.

If your 2.5mm cable is rated at 27A as you suggest, then are you sure you want to be using a 32A breaker?

I think you should be using 4mm cable here...

Actually, you would have to be incompetent. To be competent, you'd replace the MCB with a 20A one.

Christian.

FWIW less than 1% of diyers do the part p stuff. The new colours came in before pp. Not recommending you do anything naughty, just letting you know what people seem to be voting with their feet.

NT

If it's a 32A breaker, you'll need more than a 2.5mm cable. Or, if you use a 2.5mm cable, you'll need a smaller breaker!

(for a cooker circuit, I'd always wire it for more than 20A anyway).

Indeed.

Since the majority of wiring is hidden, if you don't involve the BCO, and you just uprate your wiring, who is to know it's been done 'latterly'.

Sure some surveyor at some later date might query it if you are trying to sell..so what? At the worst you will have to get it certified then, rather than now.

Even my BCO, who is a right sod, didn't seem to mind about my electrics..

|Gas oven died. Money tight. A fan oven second hand fits the gap and the |price fits the budget. I borrowed the test gear and it is sound. | |The house has never had an electric oven so there is no supply to it.

For cooking gas is much better than electricity, uk.food+drink.misc will confirm

I prefer electric fan ovens to conventional gas ones. However, I much prefer gas hobs to conventional/ceramic electric hobs. This means I should prefer dual fuel, except that they always insist on having an electric grill, which I regard as a chocolate teapot, as you can only cook toast in one of those. Any attempt to grill meat produces as much belching black smoke as a Lebanese school.

Christian.

Not as an oven, gas hob with electric oven is ideal. And if you can't cook spend thousands on an Aga to advertise the fact.

imho electric fan oven and induction hob is best combo. Induction hob is more controllable than gas and a higher % of the energy goes into the pan. Dead easy to clean too.

A good cook can cook on anything including a claypit filled with embers. A bad cook will produce rubbish om any cooker or in any oven.

having used both I can only recommend an electric hob. Yes gas is more responsive, but the additional danger of fire outweighs that in my mind. And you can get fancy lectric hobs that are more energy efficient and instantly responsive now too.

NT

Blimey, you overly scared or what?

Gas is miles better than any electric hob I've used. Ok, I've not tried induction, but at least I don't need to buy special pans.

One of the best things we did to our house, putting a bottled gas hob in. No mains gas - but it appears that 13kg propane cylinders last for absolutely ages just driving a hob, and the installation is completly trivial compared to one of those gert tank things.

cheers, clive

The message from "Clive George" contains these words:

I recently tried one of the modern electric hobs and it's a lot better than they used to be. Still not as good as gas but a lot closer than before. My judgement was perhaps coloured by it being in Mum's tiny kitchen and is only a two-ring unit. The controls were so close to the rings that you couldn't use a wok and a frying pan at the same time without it shutting itself down every time you moved anything. Once I got past that it was actually quite good at cooking.

I've heard that electric hobs are actually more dangerous for chip pan fires than gas. Anyway, if you're doing proper cooking your kitchen should be designed to allow fiery things to happen on the hob.

I'm not sure how an electric hob can be "more" energy efficient than kW in = kW out, and inductions hobs should be less efficient because the electronics must lose some waste heat, responsiveness aside.

Owain

no, I've let several people use it, and have come to realise how lethal they are in the hands of the drunk and the stupid. Any reasonible person can work out how not to kill everyone with a gas hob, but the sad truth is a lot of people are far from reasonable.

NT

With gas a lot of the heat goes straight past the pan. With induction there are losses as you say, but not that one.

NT

The 2.5 core was the installation guide recommendation but I tend to over spec too. The appliance has a maximum pull of 19A

As it turns out, I have *just* enough 4mm black and red T&E on a drum in the shed to get to the CU three times over if I need. That would make the breaker the weakest link which is good. That the breaker is 32A is mild annoyance for the moment. I'll replace it with something a bit closer to maximum load as soon as. I'm not happy with a 19A rated appliance sitting on that high a trip especially since it shoudln't surge that high even if it spikes after a powercut.

Over speccing and the house being built in the early 80's meant the cable runs were pretty easy so I ran a ring on the new colour and will replace it with the old colour in 4mm over the weekend.

Currently the wiring will be happy with a 54A pull on the 32 breaker. When I chuck the 'older' wires in it'll handle a helluva lot more.

Once the 'older wiring' is in place then someone else did the job in

The installation won't be there more than 6 months anyway since we're saving up to put in a new kitchen.

Gas is useful for people who cannot understand the concept of thermal inertia. This is most people.

Aga's are perfect for people who can't understand that full power burns things and who don't like complicated knobs.

Only really good cooks can cook on barbecues..its an art modulating a charcoal fire to the right temperature.