Iain Kay
-
Looking for some advice on what I've discovered is the electrics situation in my rental property.
I'll note that before I moved in here I made the Letting agents (LA) more than aware I use an absolute -----ton of power. I told them I can and will be pulling 2,000-4,000 kWh a quarter (with gas hob and heating). No concerns raised.
When I moved in here it looked promising. CU had no spare slots, plenty of MCBs and RCD protection in place. Nice one I thought, 4x 32A MCBs, good chance we've got a couple of rings and kitchen will be on its own. As it turns out, nope.
I haven't removed the cover, so I have not been able to confirm what connections we have inside the CU but I can confirm my findings in terms of what the resulting circuits are.
1) 16A - Does nothing
2) 16A - Radial to water heater switch, on to a switch in the living room that's got a single GU10 lamp installed in a unit coming from it. (Water heater removed some time ago)
3) 6A - Smoke alarms [Issue: One not receiving mains power but clearly wired into the trunking containing this circuit so should be]
4) 6A - Lights (Kitchen, Bathroom, Master Bedroom)
5) 6A - Lights (Lounge, Hallway, Second bedroom)
So far so good, this looks great, other than the oddity of feeding the GU10 lamp from the previously installed radial, but makes sense as this terminates inside the bottom of the unit containing the GU10 so just laziness prevails.
6) 32A - Does nothing
7) 32A - Does nothing
8) 32A - ALL sockets (Lounge, hallway, kitchen, oven, boiler, master bedroom, second bedroom)
9) 32A - Shower
10) 40A - Does nothing
Not so good. We have a single 32A ring covering everything including the bloody oven, washing machine, tumble dryer and the rest of the gaff on top!
Why the hell install all of those 32A MCBs to do sweet F all?
I've confirmed this is definitely the case by killing off the circuits in almost every possible order and I can see that nothing else is getting a complete circuit to these circuits enabling power to flow.
Now for the big question.
I did some maths here and it looks like this is seriously overloaded pretty much any time we're using the kitchen pretty heavily (most nights...).
A typical evening in the house consists of washing and drying lasting 3-4 hours, concurrently (4.6kW total), whilst over the course of this the oven will be put on (7.8kW total) and often a hair dryer (8.8kW total) and kettle (11.8kW total) too. Admittedly the last two are far shorter use, but this is seriously over the rating for this circuit and I don't feel it's over the top usage of a house.
Let's add up purely the kitchen during a typical wash and prepare meal:
2,550W - 3,000W - Kettle
900W - Toaster
80W - Fridge
125W - Boiler
2,200W - Washing Machine
2,400W - Tumble dryer
3,200W - Oven
Not all of this will be on all the time but lets assume this is peak before taking into account any of the rest of the property.
11,455W or 11.45kW best case, 11.8kW worst case. Now my 32A circuit should not be over 7.2kWh and probably not over 5.76kW for extended periods.
Then we get to two HDR tellys on pretty much all the time, set top boxes, server, multiple PCs with multiple monitors connected, PoE Switches and networking gear, smart home gear and when I am using it I often have a lab set up with multiple PCs which is where we get to the 4kW/quarter.
Right now, I'm concerned that before we even cover the devices used throughout the house, the kitchen alone (well counting the hall cupboard with tumble dryer) is pulling 159% - 164% of the rated load on this circuit.
I know that the best practise for a single ring can be based upon property size, not certain of the specs here though.
I'm unsure of the sq footage of the entire property but I'd say it isn't particularly small. We're looking at 165 sq feet in the master bedroom alone.
Should I be raising this with the LA and pushing to get this sorted out so that at very least the oven is moved to its own radial circuit and preferably get the rest of the kitchen moved over to its own ring too?
Would you suggest it's worth myself looking at spurring off this 16A radial to get an extra couple of sockets, capable of at least 13A, running in the living room that won't be on this single ring?
The 32A to the shower is currently running into the hall cupboard where there is an isolator switch. The sockets in there are on the main ring and contain my comms cabinet and the tumble dryer. The comms cabinet won't use a huge amount, although does have quite a few devices and PoE switch providing power to WiFi, VoIP phones and some smart home devices. Is there anything I could do to take power off this? Either going with a fused spur or a Garage CU that then splits into the shower and extra sockets? (I know this will require notification and a competent installer doing it).
Any thoughts from the pros would be greatly appreciated here as I'm not sure if it would be considered enough of a problem to have a LA take action, however, way I see it I'm constantly stressing this system beyond what it was intended for with no idea how the wiring quality in the walls is, so it's a concern, whether or not the LA will do anything or not I'm not sure and I don't want to raise it without getting some professional opinions.
I'll note that before I moved in here I made the Letting agents (LA) more than aware I use an absolute -----ton of power. I told them I can and will be pulling 2,000-4,000 kWh a quarter (with gas hob and heating). No concerns raised.
When I moved in here it looked promising. CU had no spare slots, plenty of MCBs and RCD protection in place. Nice one I thought, 4x 32A MCBs, good chance we've got a couple of rings and kitchen will be on its own. As it turns out, nope.
I haven't removed the cover, so I have not been able to confirm what connections we have inside the CU but I can confirm my findings in terms of what the resulting circuits are.
1) 16A - Does nothing
2) 16A - Radial to water heater switch, on to a switch in the living room that's got a single GU10 lamp installed in a unit coming from it. (Water heater removed some time ago)
3) 6A - Smoke alarms [Issue: One not receiving mains power but clearly wired into the trunking containing this circuit so should be]
4) 6A - Lights (Kitchen, Bathroom, Master Bedroom)
5) 6A - Lights (Lounge, Hallway, Second bedroom)
So far so good, this looks great, other than the oddity of feeding the GU10 lamp from the previously installed radial, but makes sense as this terminates inside the bottom of the unit containing the GU10 so just laziness prevails.
6) 32A - Does nothing
7) 32A - Does nothing
8) 32A - ALL sockets (Lounge, hallway, kitchen, oven, boiler, master bedroom, second bedroom)
9) 32A - Shower
10) 40A - Does nothing
Not so good. We have a single 32A ring covering everything including the bloody oven, washing machine, tumble dryer and the rest of the gaff on top!
Why the hell install all of those 32A MCBs to do sweet F all?
I've confirmed this is definitely the case by killing off the circuits in almost every possible order and I can see that nothing else is getting a complete circuit to these circuits enabling power to flow.
Now for the big question.
I did some maths here and it looks like this is seriously overloaded pretty much any time we're using the kitchen pretty heavily (most nights...).
A typical evening in the house consists of washing and drying lasting 3-4 hours, concurrently (4.6kW total), whilst over the course of this the oven will be put on (7.8kW total) and often a hair dryer (8.8kW total) and kettle (11.8kW total) too. Admittedly the last two are far shorter use, but this is seriously over the rating for this circuit and I don't feel it's over the top usage of a house.
Let's add up purely the kitchen during a typical wash and prepare meal:
2,550W - 3,000W - Kettle
900W - Toaster
80W - Fridge
125W - Boiler
2,200W - Washing Machine
2,400W - Tumble dryer
3,200W - Oven
Not all of this will be on all the time but lets assume this is peak before taking into account any of the rest of the property.
11,455W or 11.45kW best case, 11.8kW worst case. Now my 32A circuit should not be over 7.2kWh and probably not over 5.76kW for extended periods.
Then we get to two HDR tellys on pretty much all the time, set top boxes, server, multiple PCs with multiple monitors connected, PoE Switches and networking gear, smart home gear and when I am using it I often have a lab set up with multiple PCs which is where we get to the 4kW/quarter.
Right now, I'm concerned that before we even cover the devices used throughout the house, the kitchen alone (well counting the hall cupboard with tumble dryer) is pulling 159% - 164% of the rated load on this circuit.
I know that the best practise for a single ring can be based upon property size, not certain of the specs here though.
I'm unsure of the sq footage of the entire property but I'd say it isn't particularly small. We're looking at 165 sq feet in the master bedroom alone.
Should I be raising this with the LA and pushing to get this sorted out so that at very least the oven is moved to its own radial circuit and preferably get the rest of the kitchen moved over to its own ring too?
Would you suggest it's worth myself looking at spurring off this 16A radial to get an extra couple of sockets, capable of at least 13A, running in the living room that won't be on this single ring?
The 32A to the shower is currently running into the hall cupboard where there is an isolator switch. The sockets in there are on the main ring and contain my comms cabinet and the tumble dryer. The comms cabinet won't use a huge amount, although does have quite a few devices and PoE switch providing power to WiFi, VoIP phones and some smart home devices. Is there anything I could do to take power off this? Either going with a fused spur or a Garage CU that then splits into the shower and extra sockets? (I know this will require notification and a competent installer doing it).
Any thoughts from the pros would be greatly appreciated here as I'm not sure if it would be considered enough of a problem to have a LA take action, however, way I see it I'm constantly stressing this system beyond what it was intended for with no idea how the wiring quality in the walls is, so it's a concern, whether or not the LA will do anything or not I'm not sure and I don't want to raise it without getting some professional opinions.
