Potentially dangerous - should I report this to someone?

[SammyG]

Greetings all,

I'm looking for a bit of advice. I'm not actually an electrician, but I am an electrical design engineer and I am aware of the regs.

I recently bought a new house which, after a few weeks developed an earth fault in the kitchen that kept tripping the RCD. No problem - I found the issue and fixed it.

However, whilst I was investigating this, I noticed that the sockets in my kitchen are not on a ring circuit, but rather in a radial circuit, with 2.5mm cabling, but the MCB in the consumer unit was a 32A. I believe that this was unsafe, so I replaced the MCB with a 20A.

Because I am a designer rather than an installer, I don't know how common this is and I don't really know how dangerous it is - theoretically, in fault conditions, the wire would likely melt before the MCB trips, but does it work this way in practice?

Also, I suspect that I am not technically supposed to tinker with my own electrics this way, so I am reluctant to go down any official channels.

I'd like to know if you folks here agree that this was dangerous, and if so, should I report the original installer to anyone (his name and number are printed on the consumer unit)?

Thanks in advance

Sammy.

 

[telectrix]

That sounds quite Freudian to me, but I'm no Sigmund. :smilewinkgrin:

you must be clement then.

 

[rapparee]

My money is on the fact its a ring but with spurs off spurs in the kitchen.

Matey - you need to get somebody competent with a MFT to confirm what exactly is going on...... before doing anything.

I reckoned the same.

 

[Midwest]

you must be clement then.

If I was, I wouldn't suffer fools gladly.

 

[Amp David]

I've got to ask, how are you designing circuits without the basic knowledge of the tests required to ensure they are safe to be use.

On a computer, computer says yesss