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MG201

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I was talking to 1 of the QSs today and was told that in amendment 1 of the 18th he thinks it will say about going back to doing radials rather than ring circuits. I'm not sure how true this is but the guy is friendly with NICEIC people and seeminly this was discussed at a recent road show ( that he paid £5 to go to ) . Is this a step in right direction .
 
"They'll be getting rid of ring circuits" is a rumour I have heard before every amendment comes out for the last god knows how many years. Hence I would assume this is no more than the usual ill informed mutterings.
 
rings for bedrooms and living rooms are not so often used as the loading is generally low and a 20A radial is more than adequate. however, kitchen appliances pull more than the rest of the house put together ( megawatt showers excluded) , so a 32A ring is generally the best way forward for kitchens.
 
The regs people are just clutching at straws to try and justify the ongoing changes to the regs.................

The design is up the installer .............

What the regs people need to do is to tighten up guidance on changes to existing circuits.

One of my clients has just had a spanky new kitchen / utility installed - right next to the room when the CU is - the muppets who did the work simply extended the ONLY socket circuit so that ALL the sockets are on the same circuit -------- what pillocks

I've now added a 2G socket by the cu so when the RCBO trips and resets, she can get an extension lead out!
 
As previously said in not a spark. I was jist wondering wether it might be an idea to use radial rather than ring as a standard method. What was the reason we moved to rings rather than radial ( if any 1 remembers)
 
As previously said in not a spark. I was jist wondering wether it might be an idea to use radial rather than ring as a standard method. What was the reason we moved to rings rather than radial ( if any 1 remembers)

The primary reason to move away from ring circuits seems to be a growing number of installers who are probably not very competent in installing or testing ring circuits who are convincing each other rings are dangerous.
If the NICEIC are backing this move it will be to dumb down the industry further to facilitate their cash cow of short course educated installers swelling their coffers.
 
We used to work for one particular fast food chain, chicken anyone, and all their drive-thrus were single point or two point radials for specific appliances. Few of these appliances carried any load so ten sockets could cover ten circuits and they were a doddle to test. I don't think you will see the demise of the ring final in the near future and as Andy says this has been hinted at for years.
 
Thanks all. I just like to keep in the loop and try be forward thinking in all fields. But got to say the standard of some so called tradesman nowadays is questionable to say the least very poor and it's just pushing the drive towards modular factory built everything. Which will only aid the loss of good tradesmen to factory jobs
 
I worked for a Large testing company and used to test SLAM blocks on army camps, they were 5 years old.

And the amount of people who could not connect up a ring circuit was unbelievable, could guarantee a few ring main faults
 
As previously said in not a spark. I was jist wondering wether it might be an idea to use radial rather than ring as a standard method. What was the reason we moved to rings rather than radial ( if any 1 remembers)

The main advantage of a radial over a ring is that if a ring becomes broken it can still receive power to every point, but the cable will not have sufficient overload protection,it is possible that if the cables are not identified and proper testing is not carried out then it can be connected wrong, for example, if someone where to change a fuseboard and connect each leg of the ring to a seperatly 20a breaker, you now isolate one breaker but the circuit is still receiving power. Ring circuits are used to save material, and allow for more sockets, and a greater current capacity to be installed using a smaller (cross sectional area) cable than a radial circuit. I heard that they became popular during a copper shortage
 
... in amendment 1 of the 18th he thinks it will say about going back to doing radials rather than ring circuits. I'm not sure how true this is ...
Hi - looking at the new BBB, Appendix 15 has the same info on how to do RFC as the BYB did. So it's def still in. The drawing has been redrafted, but I found only 1 change, and it was a "no change change" if that makes any sense . Points Pints awarded to those that can find changes . o_O
 

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