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Discuss 13 Amp plug on a 2.9kW oven in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

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J

JT101

Hi Everyone

So i've installed my first kitchen and everything has gone well. I've wired in the oven based on a sparkies recommendation but I just want to check I've done things correctly and try to understand a bit more about cooker circuits.

The oven is a single NEFF fan oven 2.9kW . There are no other ovens in the kitchen, and just a gas hob. The previous kitchen that had been installed in the last few years has a dedicated cooker switch which goes back to the circuit board on it's own dedicated fuse. Next to this fuse is a shared 30A RCD which covers the oven, ground floor lighting, sockets etc. A socket is spurred off of the cooker switch and is controlled by it. It is at the back of the oven unit.
2900W / 230V = 12.6Amps. So I put some 2.5mm flex on the oven with a 13A plug, and plugged it into the spurred socket. I'm pretty sure this is what the sparkies recommended to me.

Based on this I've got a few questions I hope someone can help me with.

1) Is this safe / correct setup, and do I need to have it certified and tested by an electrician?

2) I can see that you want a fuse as close as possible to the maximum rating of an applicance, but just out of interest what could happen if you put a 12.6A cooker on a 30A fuse? For example, if there was a fault in the oven, could it get hotter and hotter and hotter and start a fire before it tripped out at 30A?

3) Both sparkies I spoke to said to use 1.5mm flex on the oven. But I thought this was only rated up to 10A? I put a 2.5mm cable on there in anycase which I believe is rated to 13.5A, but a 1.5mm would have been a lot easier to wire into the plug.


Many thanks. Looking forward to your responses
 
If the oven comes with a plug on it, you can just plug it in.

There are some urban myths & misunderstanding about MCB /fuse sizes. The MCB in teh consumer unit is there to protect the cable that runs from teh consumer unit to (in your case) the cooker switch.

The fuse in the plug is there to protect the cable running to the oven and may also be there to protect the cooker itself, if that is what is dictated by the manufacturer.

1.5mm cable is rated at around 18amps, in free air, which is what you've got so that's what you need.

PS You don't need it certified, you are just plugging something in!
 
Understood. I can change the cable for 1.5mm.
Unfortunately this is one of those situations where I'm going to get two different opinions.
So it seems i have two options. One is to do what was recommended to me by an electrician i.e. use the 13A plug.
The second, and I'm not sure if I understand this completely, is to hardwire the oven into the load side of the cooker switch, and change the MCB. The MCB is currently 32A. The electrician I asked said maximum 15A, which is not really helpful given that they seem to come in 10A and 16A, neither of which would be suitable.

Incase you're wondering, I'm happy to pay a sparky to come round and do the hard wiring, but they're telling me to put a plug on it.
 
You guys must be mind readers. Yep, can't find the manual and I can't find a place on their website to download a new one, but the model is Neff b44552.5gb
I did ring their customer service who told me the oven should be hardwired, but if the electrician installing it decides to use a plug it is up to them. She was indicating that this could be common practice, but hard wiring was recommended.
I replaced the 2.5mm cable with a 1.5mm heat resistant flex now, so at least that's correct.
I plan to have the electrician come and have a look, and potentially hard wire it, but it's safe now right? Heat resistant flex, 13A plug, spurred socket off of a cooker switch back to a 32A fuse on a modern MCU all on a dedicated circuit, and protected by a shared 30A RCD.
I mean what can I say. It should be hardwired, but I wonder how many electricians or installers just add a plug like I've done on a dedicated circuit. Not sure what the benefit is other than preventing it being plugged into a regular socket by accident.
 
Dear JT

That's ridiculous, all new appliances come with installation and user instructions.
You can get new ones from the Neff website here
User manual | NEFF - http://www.neff-home.com/uk/service/manual

Unfortunately, you have not provided a valid model number. But in any case, you MUST follow the manufacturer's advice. That is the rule, the manufacturer's instructions must be followed: not your postman, not the man in the B&Q shop and not an electrician. Some tradespeople have funny ideas in their heads about the way they have "always done things".
Time moves on and some peoples knowledge doesnt't keep up.... Some don't know what they are doing in the first place....

If you have a problem and do not do what NEFF say, then you'll find the nice shiny warranty from neff goes in the bin.
 
As long as the plug and socket are of good quality it will be fine. The reason fixed loads at or close to 13a are not always on a plug is that fixed loads over 2kw should not be on a RFC for general use, with a plug it would be possible to do this rather than a dedicated circuit.
The other issue is that sockets and plugs are not great at prolonged current close to their maximum. They tend to burn out. This is a reflection on poor quality as much as anything though, and as long as you don't use cheap crap, and make sure terminations are tight and well made without losing half the strands of the flex you will be ok leaving it as it is.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies. Thanks Taylorwocities for the link I couldn't find it before and point taken about following the manual. The oven did come with a manual, but I think the clients threw it out accidentally, so I'll have to download a new one. I'm confident that the plug and wiring I have at the moment are all sound and good connections, but as you say we should follow the manual to validate the warranty.
 

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