Have the rules for ring mains changed over the years?

[nicebutdim]

Alternatively circuits layout could be designed appropriately for an individual property.

 

[rewireIT]

Bad practice, in my opinion. I wire a downstairs room with the rooms above it. Uses less cable and allows power upstairs and down even if a circuit is out of operation. Tht power may not be in the room you require it, but it won't be far away.

I like the cut of your jib

 

[mainline]

Bad practice, in my opinion. I wire a downstairs room with the rooms above it. Uses less cable and allows power upstairs and down even if a circuit is out of operation. Tht power may not be in the room you require it, but it won't be far away.

It's not as easy to label the Cu though

 

[brianmoooore]

Tend to label socket circuits by compass points, such as "sockets E", "sockets N" , etc. If it's a posh house, then "sockets N wing", etc.

 

[mainline]

Which is correct.

The circuit protective conductor (CPC) is used to provide protection from electric shock and to allow sufficient current to flow, so the protective devices can trip.

How can you say its sole job is to react when there is a fault in the insulation, when it's obviously not its SOLE job. ?????

 

[narkedatninety]

The circuit protective conductor (CPC) is used to provide protection from electric shock and to allow sufficient current to flow, so the protective devices can trip.

How can you say its sole job is to react when there is a fault in the insulation, when it's obviously not its SOLE job. ?????

So you think I said insulation. I can see where the confusion lies now. No, that's not it's sole purpose.

 

[mainline]

So you think I said insulation. I can see where the confusion lies now. No, that's not it's sole purpose.

You actually said "who's sole purpose is to detect a breach of the dielectric barrier within the run of cable"

Dielectrics are materials that don't allow current to flow. An insulator.

 

[nicebutdim]

Tend to label socket circuits by compass points, such as "sockets E", "sockets N" , etc. If it's a posh house, then "sockets N wing", etc.

I've done this, but not over two floors

 

[Mike Johnson]

Nine times out of ten, if I had the opportunity I would wire lights to each room on each floor on separate circuits, but this was in the day of incandescent bulbs that would trip a MCB when they blew, saved the whole ground/first floor going into darkness.

 

[brianmoooore]

Nine times out of ten, if I had the opportunity I would wire lights to each room on each floor on separate circuits, but this was in the day of incandescent bulbs that would trip a MCB when they blew, saved the whole ground floor/first going into darkness.

For upstairs lights, I usually wire all the bedrooms on one lighting circuit, and landing and any passage lights on another. That way, you either have light in the room or just outside it.

 

[Mike Johnson]

For upstairs lights, I usually wire all the bedrooms on one lighting circuit, and landing and any passage lights on another. That way, you either have light in the room or just outside it.

That's fine, but the CU that needs to be found is usually on the ground floor.

 

[nicebutdim]

For upstairs lights, I usually wire all the bedrooms on one lighting circuit, and landing and any passage lights on another. That way, you either have light in the room or just outside it.

It's usual over here to supply landing light from ground floor circuit.

It makes sense in some ways, but I've never liked it. Your reasoning is sound and makes me question my thinking.

 

[brianmoooore]

If there are only two lighting circuits, then I would connect the landing and passage lights to the downstairs circuit. Any 2G switches will have both halves on the same circuit, and no 'borrowed' neutrals.

 

[narkedatninety]

You actually said "who's sole purpose is to detect a breach of the dielectric barrier within the run of cable"

Dielectrics are materials that don't allow current to flow. An insulator.

Dielectrics are classified based on molecular structure and polarisation mechanism. Classifications includes capacitors, transducers, photonic/ferroelectric devices but, yes, the insulation you mention does include a dielectric constant. It certainly forms part of the barrier.

 

[pc1966]

That's fine but i wasn't arguing that RoW uses radials because they can't use rings; more that the fact they don't use them proves they're not needed to install perfectly safe and operational installations. Rings are simply unnecessary.

They are not necessary. Neither are radials either.

But the RFC is efficient and effective for its intended purpose of general sockets around a larger area, it also lends itself to better fault coverage during testing.

The same logic can be applied to parallel feeds. They are not necessary but if you have every had the misfortune to try and wrangle cable like 120mm and above you would be cursing the designer for not use two that are not quite so " anaconda on ------" to deal with.

I also think it's preferable to have different rooms or different sections of the home on different breakers. We're encouraged to split between floor levels but imo splitting between sections or rooms is much more preferable.

It is a trade-off. How much more effort in running each circuit back to the CU? How much more cost in the RCBOs (or coming soon for a small premium AFDD for all)?

Also how often do you meet an installation with a fault in the fixed wiring that is not a direct result of botched DIY? It happens for sure, but probably less than faulty appliances.

And this leads back to another less considered aspect of the EU versus UK plugs. With fused plugs if there is a hard fault then often the fuse will go as well as the breaker tripping. Reset the breaker and all comes back on except the faulted appliance as it has been isolated by its fuse blowing.

With unfused EU plugs you would need to either know which on has faulted, or unplug all and go round plugging them back in until BANG!

That is another nice aspect of UK sockets, though sadly underused, they are (usually) switched. So you can plug in and switch on and have less of a brown trouser moment of plugging in to a live fault should it occur.

Finally on the UK sockets, they have the safety shutter that is lacking in most of the rest of the world. True, the determined child or idiot can defeat that protection but it raises the bar somewhat to poking stuff in to holed to find out what happens...