Splitting Tails and Cable Routing

[tomKett]

Hi All,

Just been looking over the work I need to do for the rewire, prior to my ELECSA inspection.

1) The customer wants to move the meter and location of the fuseboard, as I will be doing the work at weekends I want to keep the old circuits live until the new circuits are ready to replace them. (Obviosuly not working live!) Is it possible to split the tails to power up both consumer units?

2) The customer wants sockets either side of the cooker, is it acceptable to run the cable directly between them (cable in oval conduit behind plaster.) Or should I take them up from the socket along the wall at the top within the 150mm zone and back down again. I know that you can run cables directly between sockets I was just concerned about going into the zone where you cannot have sockets?

3) The property I am doing is a bungalow with no access to the roof to run cables between rooms, is it acceptable for me to route the cable between rooms at socket level or would I be expected to take the cable up and into the next room at the top corner? The sockets in the second room will be on the same wall i.e. in line with the sockets in the preceeding wall. Therefore I will be keeping within the cable zones.

4) Last question regarding routing, they have an open planned dinning room / kitchen, they want sockets on the same wall, the kitchen sockets being at worktop level and the dinning room sockets at a lower level, these will be on the same ring, to connect between the lower socket and the higher socket, can I bring the cable vertical until I am at the same level as the kitchen sockets and then along, or do I have to go all the way up, across at the top and back down again.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

regards

Tom

 

[telepath]

Hi tomKett

1) The customer wants to move the meter and location of the fuseboard, as I will be doing the work at weekends I want to keep the old circuits live until the new circuits are ready to replace them. (Obviosuly not working live!) Is it possible to split the tails to power up both consumer units?

I would guess that it would be ok while doing the job, your only using the same amount of power. I would anyway.

2) The customer wants sockets either side of the cooker, is it acceptable to run the cable directly between them (cable in oval conduit behind plaster.) Or should I take them up from the socket along the wall at the top within the 150mm zone and back down again. I know that you can run cables directly between sockets I was just concerned about going into the zone where you cannot have sockets?

This would be ok as well.

3) The property I am doing is a bungalow with no access to the roof to run cables between rooms, is it acceptable for me to route the cable between rooms at socket level or would I be expected to take the cable up and into the next room at the top corner? The sockets in the second room will be on the same wall i.e. in line with the sockets in the preceeding wall. Therefore I will be keeping within the cable zones.

You could put the sockets back to back and drill straight through.

If you look at the onsite guide page 60 figure 7.2 the safe zone from a socket is horizontally/vertically along the whole length/height of the wall, so anything horizontal or vertical from a socket is ok.

4) Last question regarding routing, they have an open planned dinning room / kitchen, they want sockets on the same wall, the kitchen sockets being at worktop level and the dinning room sockets at a lower level, these will be on the same ring, to connect between the lower socket and the higher socket, can I bring the cable vertical until I am at the same level as the kitchen sockets and then along, or do I have to go all the way up, across at the top and back down again.

As before horizontally and vertically from a socket is a safe zone.

Hope this helps.