Does this setup contravene any regs or is it ok?

[markythesparky]

The Reg is 314.4.

You can run a spur from the OCPD from a ring and comply as it is specifically allowed in BS7671.

You cannot comply with BS7671 by bunching circuits such as lighting or radials in the same OCPD. It is non compliant.

And just to throw a rather large spanner in the works, the regulations also state that you are allowed deviations from the regs if you can prove that they are electrically as safe as the regs require them to be. This is what the deviations box is for in the EIC. The regs are of course non statutory so there is scope to adapt. It would still be a non compliance but under the regs it is allowed as long as you list it as a non compliance and justify your reasoning for doing it.

 

[oracle]

Got them coming and going SC because the NIC are also a money making sham.

 

[Silly Sausage]

The Reg is 314.4.

You cannot comply with BS7671 by bunching circuits such as lighting or radials in the same OCPD. It is non compliant.

314.4.... irrelevant. The OP's circuit is perfectly safe.
Quote me any BS7671 regs that specially states it isn't.

You can't condemn someone with your opinions that something is wrong without hard evidence to back it up. All of you nay sayers are severely lacking in that respect.

Stroma, you're wrong!
OP, right!

 

[SparkyChick]

Well, I fail to see how combining two circuits at the consumer unit contravenes 314.4.

I'm sorry, I just don't and thus far nothing you've posted has come anywhere close to swaying my view.

 

[johnduffell]

you can run as many cables back to the CU as you can comfortably terminate, doesn't matter if one goes to the loft, one to the back of the house and one to the front of the house, it's as good as having a normal one dimensional radial.

I like to improve my understanding of the regs, but this thread is already 11 pages on something so simple and therefore is not a patch on the water tank earthing one which is genuinely hard to decide!

 

[Ian1981]

The same Niceic that on an assessors visit said one way of dealing with a borrowed neutral situation (lighting) on an older installation where rewiring is not possible,is to double up the 2 lighting supplies into one OCPD making it err one circuit

 

[markythesparky]

Which would be a non compliance but if it is electrically safe it is allowed as long as you list it in the certificate.

I have never said that it’s unsafe to do this only that it does not comply with the regulations.

You guys either don’t read the full thread or you are not understanding my atguement.

IT MAY BE SAFE BUT IT IS NONE COMPLIANT!

 

[SparkyChick]

I've read the whole thread and I'm not understanding your argument.

 

[johnduffell]

When assessing an installation you can only look at the current state, not imagine other designs it might have had in the past and decide if the structure of the installation was redefined in some way.

 

[oracle]

Go

I've read the whole thread and I'm not understanding your argument.

SC that's why he's shouting at you. If people can't understand what someone is saying to them, then they they SHOUT it at them.

 

[markythesparky]

I presume you are talking about my posts. I am not shouting. I have explained my argument numerous times to the point of being immensely frustrated.

My argument has never been about whether lumping circuits together is safe; indeed I have admitted that I have done it, albeit for a temporary stop gap solution. It may well be electrically safe and in which case it can be done (temporarily).

If it is done as a new install it should be highlighted in the EIC as a non compliance and explained as to why it was done, along the lines of a justification. (By the way, the excuse of ‘I needed another spare way because I didn’t buy a big enough CU, and don’t think that the two I have looks to be enough for possibly future expansion’ is not a justification in my view).

If it is found during an EICR it should be highlighted as a C3 or a C2 if it proposes an electrical risk.

How much clearer can I be?

If you guys still don’t agree now then I can only assume that you have been practicing this. I haven’t so I’m not bothered by it.

I will now bow out! Live long and prosper!

 

[SparkyChick]

The closest you've come to an explanation is claiming the origin of a circuit is the cable that connects it to the OCPD that supplies it.

To go back to a point I made earlier though, much of your argument seems to stem from appendix 15 in that the radial circuits show one cable and that by virtue of this you can only comply if you have one cable in the OCPD.

You side stepped my question regarding a 20A DP switch on a ring supplying a single socket outlet (a typical grid switch scenario) saying you never said it didn't comply, completely missing (or sidestepping) the point I was making.

The example I gave is standard practice and occurs in thousands of properties. But it isn't shown in appendix 15 for ring final circuits so therefore using your logic (that appendix 15 shows the things you can do), it must not comply.

So either appendix 15 shows the only things you can do or it shows SOME possibilities (as @DPG said, the regs can't possibly show every possible implementation scenario). Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

If it shows possibilities, show me a regulation that a radial circuit supplied from the middle would contravene.

Any suggestion you can't adequately test it and record the results is nonsense because the test results are the worst case results from testing, so it can be tested along it's entire length and the worst case results recorded.

 

[Deleted member 26818]

If we consider the information supplied in Appendix 15, then we should consider the fact that it states for both Radials and RFCs, that the circuit starts at the DB (in the case of RFCs, the circuit also finishes at the DB).
If we connect 2 circuits to a single MCB, then we are effectively connecting the middle of the circuit to the DB.

It’s all very well stating that connecting 2 circuits to one MCB makes them into one circuit as per the definition of a circuit.
However, just because something satisfies a definition in BS7671, doesn’t necessarily make that thing into what is being defined.
A fridge freezer satisfies the definition of a circuit, but I wouldn’t call it a circuit.

 

[DPG]

A fridge in no way satisfies any definition of a circuit. It defines a piece of current using equipment fed by a circuit.

 

[Octopus]

I thought I’d put my input into this thread to rest but I had ten minutes to spare today and this was still bugging me. So I took the opportunity to call the NICEIC technical helpline about it. I have been resurrected!

Their view is that the regulation, although short on specific detail, as a re a lot of the regulations (as it is simetimes very hard to express the intended rule in writing), does in fact intend that each circuit should be connected to only one OCPD. In view of ‘what is classed as a circuit, I specifically asked about lumping circuits together with the view that they both become one circuit, and the view was that they don’t. The circuit is defined as per the wiring was intended and it should comply with BS7671. They would class this as a non compliance.

I asked, if in the event that I found this whilst doing an EICR, would I flag it and if so what would I flag it as. The view was that it should be recorded as a C3 for definite or a C2 if there was a danger of overload or other problems.

Hum ............ 2 cables at a OCPD is NOT a non compliance

The NICEIC don't write the rules so should spend their time working with the IET getting stupid anomalies resolved

As for a C3 - no way.