wiring chimney style cooker hood:power socket inside chimney

That is pretty much how mine was done by my electrician when my kitchen was refitted earlier this year.

It's what I did, and as far as I can see, there's no issue.

I actually moved the socket so it would be inside the chimney section for visual reasons.

Is the fan unit and duct from it in the lower part of the hood or is it right up in the top?

If it's in the top and you are therefore sucking water vapour, greasy air and all the rest past the fitting, then it's probably not a good idea. Otherwise if the venting occurs lower down, there shouldn't be an issue with the fitting becoming damp or dirty, I suppose that you could replace the standard socket with an exterior type FCU.

However, the switch is supposed to be easily accessible for isolation purposes. If the fan develops a fault or there is a fire, how are you going to isolate the fan if the switch is tucked away up the chimney?

The chimney is typically just an outer shell. The vapours are contailed in a flexi-duct within the chimney. The wiring is within the chimney,but not inside the ducting.

Access to inside the chimney is usually fairly trivial: The outer shroud either pulls off, or its 2 small screws. Yes, it may require use of a tool. You'd probably want a switch within easy access in this case.

There's no regulatory requirement for emergency switching in this case, so the switch doesn't need to be easy to access. It just needs to be accessible by someone performing maintenance on the unit, and should be accessible before any access is gained to potentially live or moving parts.

I usually put cooker hood FCU's behind an adjacent wall cupboard, with a cut out in the panel back for access.

On 16 Dec 2006 10:00:31 -0800 someone who may be " snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk" wrote this:-

As it is fixed equipment it would be preferable to feed it from a switched fused connection unit. These are much neater.

Personally I would install it outside the hood, but there is an argument that it can be installed inside the outer shell.

A good way to do this is to use an unswitched socket in the chimney this means that you can use the plug supplied on the extractor.

Outside the chimney put the FCU with the correct (3A) fuse and use this to supply the unswitched socket. By the book, you should really label both the FCU and the unswitched socket as needed to say what they do.

Thanks to everyone for the advice, this is very helpful!

Julian

Ed Sirett wrote: