single ring circuit and oven wiring concerns

[poley]

Hi, I am looking for some opinions before I get an electrician in so that I am a bit more clued up on the situation.

We have recently moved to a house built in the 60s, it was meant to have had a partial rewire and has had a modern CU fitted. It is a 3 bedroom house on 2 floors and from the CU there are separate upstairs and downstairs lighting circuits, a shower circuit and a garage circuit. However there is only one socket ring for the whole house and there does not appear to be a separate circuit for the cooker or the kitchen. It seems therefore that the oven is connected to the sockets ring which is 2.5mm twin and earth. Am I right to be concerned, and what are my options? Should the oven have it's own circuit from the CU and/or should the kitchen have a separate circuit? Should I disconnect the cooker until this is sorted?

Could the socket ring be split into two radial circuits separating the upstairs and downstairs? This would avoid the disruption that would be caused by trying to rewire back to the CU. I have read different opinions about radial vs ring circuits for sockets.

As I am planning on removing the electric shower could this circuit be used for the oven?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Garz]

Is your oven/cooker Gas?

 

[trev]

If it's an electric oven over 2kw then it's recommended that it be on it's own dedicated circuit BUT that is in newer versions of the regs. So while your house may not comply with current regs it may be in accordance with earlier versions. Your best bet is to discuss your concerns with the spark you call out as explanations can get pretty involved and long.
Post up your location and someone will get in touch I'm sure

 

[poley]

Thanks for the replies. The cooker is a gas hob and electric oven. I'm not sure what power the oven is. I'm near Glasgow. Any thoughts on the single ring circuit?

 

[trev]

If I was to rewire your place I'd install more than one RFC. Depending on the expected load this would also result more than likely in a few radials being installed for kitchen appliances but the regs are not retrospective, just because it does not comply with current standards does not automatically mean that it's dangerous or needs to be brought up to date immediately.
Only a periodic inspection and test would show what needs to be done

 

[Engineer54]

If you have an oven with a plug-top on the lead, then this should be fine on a FRC, but maybe not on yours, depending on what other loading is on your single FRC. To be honest with you, ...you should be seriously thinking about rewiring, ...at the very least your kitchen!!

The kitchen in the majority of domestic housing will always be the most power hungry room in the house/apartment. This power needs adequate provision being made, in your case a separate FRC or a couple of decent cable sized radials. Nothing to stop you including a CCU too while your at it, and yes, the cable presently supplying the shower unit would in all likelihood be perfectly suited for supplying the CCU in the kitchen.

Nothing stopping you rewiring the whole of your house over a period of time, one stage at a time, as funds become available!!

 

[Chr!s]

Hi, I am looking for some opinions before I get an electrician in so that I am a bit more clued up on the situation.

We have recently moved to a house built in the 60s, it was meant to have had a partial rewire and has had a modern CU fitted. It is a 3 bedroom house on 2 floors and from the CU there are separate upstairs and downstairs lighting circuits, a shower circuit and a garage circuit. However there is only one socket ring for the whole house and there does not appear to be a separate circuit for the cooker or the kitchen. It seems therefore that the oven is connected to the sockets ring which is 2.5mm twin and earth. Am I right to be concerned, and what are my options? Should the oven have it's own circuit from the CU and/or should the kitchen have a separate circuit? Should I disconnect the cooker until this is sorted?

Could the socket ring be split into two radial circuits separating the upstairs and downstairs? This would avoid the disruption that would be caused by trying to rewire back to the CU. I have read different opinions about radial vs ring circuits for sockets.

As I am planning on removing the electric shower could this circuit be used for the oven?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks

You do need to consider what other loads are on the ring, if its a plug in id expect it to be 2kw, so 8.7 amps, but lets not forget once upto temp the load cycles, so the 8.7 could be reduced considerably if you spent the time to calculate the equivalent constant load. Id expect it to be fine.

Regards Chris

 

[polo1]

Thanks for the replies. The cooker is a gas hob and electric oven. I'm not sure what power the oven is. I'm near Glasgow. Any thoughts on the single ring circuit?

If you are looking for further info/advice, PM me. I'm in your area.
Regards.

 

[poley]

Thanks for all the replies guys. The oven is rated 2.2kW. Also in the kitchen is a fridge-freezer, microwave/kettle/toaster. The washing machine is in a different part of the house but on the same ring obviously.

I will look at how I can run a separate supply to the kitchen when I can as we come to decorate etc. I just wanted to check if this is inherently dangerous and needed a spark ASAP or not.

polo1- thanks for the offer, good to know there's someone local I can call on, cheers.

 

[Big n Daft]

Why not get a sparky run two cables out to a point under ther floorboards, split the ring and connect the two new cables to each end, thus giving you two rfc's in your house. Its a easy solution for the time being until you get sorted and have decided what you want to do.

 

[seashore]

as you've just moved in (and if you have the money) get it re wired now before you start decorating the place. you'll have peace of mind and it will be a big plus if you ever sell

 

[poley]

Thanks for the advice.

The annoying thing is that the house has a fairly new kitchen fitted that we did not plan on changing, it would have been sensible for the previous owner to have sorted the kitchen wiring at this time as the kitchen was enlarged with new walls so new wiring but unfortunately not a new circuit. The house also has laminate flooring throughout which will be a pain.

The lighting circuits have no earth so for now I have changed all the light switches (they had metal faced switches fitted) and fittings with class 2. No problems were brought up in the home report survey, could there be some comeback for this?


A rewire is on the to-do list but in the meantime I will get it tested and look at splitting the ring into 2 as suggested by Big n Daft and rewire in stages as suggested by Engineer 54.

Cheers guys

 

[trev]

The problems with a stage by stage rewire are the work and the mess seem never ending and it will probably end up costing you more. If you can afford it bite the bullet and get it done in one hit