2 or 3 rings within a 3 bed semi?

[HappyHippyDad]

Evening all..

I have just rewired the sockets in a house. To begin with all sockets, including the boiler (gas) and kitchen where on one radial circuit on a 20A mcb.
I have put the house on one ring (32A mcb), the kitchen on a seperate ring and the boiler on its own circuit. The client is happy but would you guys have done the same or would you have split upstairs and down on seperate rings? With regards max demand I am completely happy but with nuisance tripping it may have been better to seperate up and down?

Cheers.

 

[NDG Elecs]

For a typical three bed semi I would probably opt for two kitchen radials, two downstairs socket radials and one upstairs radial. Logic being is that I am sick of seeing endless issues on RFCs that go undetected for years. Also there is marginally more scope for increased demand overall, with pretty much the same amount of cable being used.
If a 'standard issue' dual RCD board was used I would be tempted to RCBO the boiler using a HI way. The amount of times a boiler causes nuisance tripping is up there with Asda appliances (in my personal experience!)
Lights I like to split as much as possible, on one rewire of a three bed bungalow I had around six lighting circuits. 60898s are much more likely to react to a lamp blowing afterall. 60898s could learn a thing or two from good old 3036s in that respect!!

 

[kingeri]

How would you guys rewire a 4 storey house then? Cellar is a games/cinema room, ground floor has living room and kitchen/diner, first floor bathroom and bedroom 1, 2nd floor bedrooms 2 & 3. Then storage loft on top of that.

 

[DPG]

Or you could go proper council house bashing style and run a ring final around the 1st floor sockets and spur off to sockets directly below on the ground floor

My house is wired pretty much like this (from new, built around 1974). Downstairs sockets on RFC, each upstairs socket spurred of one of the downstairs sockets. Done on the cheap when built.

Still like it now - too much hassle to run an upstairs RFC in!

 

[Grezza]

Is everyone doing their radials on 4mm or shorter 2.5mm circuits?

Tender to just do ring finals as I don’t like the idea of putting 2 x 4mm in them sockets

 

[David M]

Is everyone doing their radials on 4mm or shorter 2.5mm circuits?

Tender to just do ring finals as I don’t like the idea of putting 2 x 4mm in them sockets

Putting the 2 x 4mm in the socket is straight forward enough, folding them back is less fun though. Being a bit stiffer they tend to put more strain on the terminations so you have to be more careful bending them and checking for tightness.

 

[7029 dave]

I always used to have up and downstairs on two different circuits.

 

[ashg285]

1 ring for upstairs, 1 separate ring for downstairs and then ring in kitchen separate as well

 

[kingeri]

How would you guys rewire a 4 storey house then? Cellar is a games/cinema room, ground floor has living room and kitchen/diner, first floor bathroom and bedroom 1, 2nd floor bedrooms 2 & 3. Then storage loft on top of that.

?

 

[HappyHippyDad]

Many thanks for all the replies chaps

 

[DPG]

One radial for each socket in the house. No nuisance tripping and easy to isolate things to work on them. You're welcome.

 

[Dave OCD]

One radial for each socket in the house. No nuisance tripping and easy to isolate things to work on them. You're welcome.

All joking aside I think there was a time in the distant past when 15a round pin sockets were wired like that, Tel and Pete will tell you all about it.

 

[Dave OCD]

Putting the 2 x 4mm in the socket is straight forward enough, folding them back is less fun though. Being a bit stiffer they tend to put more strain on the terminations so you have to be more careful bending them and checking for tightness.

I find that as long as you use 35mm boxes the 4mm cables go in well, being stranded it's as easy as 2.5 solid cores really.

 

[Dave OCD]

For a typical three bed semi I would probably opt for two kitchen radials, two downstairs socket radials and one upstairs radial. Logic being is that I am sick of seeing endless issues on RFCs that go undetected for years. Also there is marginally more scope for increased demand overall, with pretty much the same amount of cable being used.
If a 'standard issue' dual RCD board was used I would be tempted to RCBO the boiler using a HI way. The amount of times a boiler causes nuisance tripping is up there with Asda appliances (in my personal experience!)
Lights I like to split as much as possible, on one rewire of a three bed bungalow I had around six lighting circuits. 60898s are much more likely to react to a lamp blowing afterall. 60898s could learn a thing or two from good old 3036s in that respect!!

That's not really an issue as it's only the old filament lamps that do that when they fail due to a momentary short, then again plenty of older folks seem to have a fair stock of the good old 100w GLSs hoarded away.

 

[sam400]

No ring finals for me either!
2 x radial to kitchen, 1x radial upstairs & 1x radial downstairs

Job done

 

[Dave OCD]

Only cos you don't know how to test a ring.