Wiring Regs. - 17th Edition - rumour confirmed?

Dec 02, 2007 27 Replies

Oh don't worry about that.

This is like Alice in Wonderland - the Queen of Hearts. Sentence first, trial afterwards.

Work out the legislation that you want then make the RIA fit that complete with promotions for the civil servants involved. Part P was done in this way, so this one is a mere bagatelle

The thinking seems to be a belt & braces approach to avoiding incidents like the electrified plate rack that killed Jenny Tonge's daughter - safe zones routing plus either a 30 mA RCD or earthed protection of the cable to operate the OPD. Where the RCD is used with unprotected cable it's there to provide additional basic protection (supplementary direct contact protection in oldspeak) so it does need to be 30 mA.

Apparently a solution NICEIC are proposing at their seminars, for

2-storey houses, is to have a split-load CU (main switch and two 30 mA RCDs) with two groups of MCBs, one group feeding upstairs lighting and downstairs power and the other group vice-versa. What fun.

Anyone have an opportunity to ask them "given the current performance of RCDs and domestic equipment, what is the estimated increase in the number/cost of accidents when use of a socket etc downstairs plunges upstairs into darkness or vice-versa? And the future forecasts bearing in mind the forecast increase in elderly, single occupancy households?"

In article , Robin writes

Cue requirements for emergency lighting in domestic installations in future legislation.

I think I prefer a dedicated CU for lighting and ancillary circuits with its own RCD in this circumstance, supplemented with some emergency lighting in appropriate places.

From what I can make out, they are typically groups of single pole MCBs protected by RCDs. There usually seem to be twice the number as there are here, probably due to radial circuits.

One would expect to see a lot of them, but they seem to be curiously absent from the shelves of bricolage places. I think that they are a secret weapon.

Surely that violates the (informal?) principle of least surprise?

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