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The Ring is dead, long live the Radial!⚡
- Thread starter Scolmore
- Start date
I think the way forward would be radials,my thinking was 20 amp radialS.
One for upstairs & downstairs in a normal 3 bed.
Dishwasher,Washing machine,oven on their own radials, & a nice radial for all those other bits.
Been putting Ring’s in for ages now ,let’s move forward
Debating the pro's and con's of rings and radials and all the variations is always going to be one of those never ending debates goes round in circles and occasionally goes off at a tangent
The spurring of other sockets from either circuit is the one that generally leads to most of the problems, while the professionals may split a ring and extend it the accepted DIY method is just to spur from the nearest socket.
The problem is the DIY guy who sees 2 cables looped at a socket and has not got the ability or equipment to identify whether it is a ring or a radial and spurs off it to a new socket
When designing circuits the ring provides a flexibility that in some situations would need several radials to give a similar outcome, look at any 1930's property that hasn't been rewired where radials have been extended and in some cases have ended up as rings
The fault finding and inspect and test nightmare normally only shows it's head on older installations that have had many alterations and extensions over a number of years from any number of DIYers and / or builders who believe it is only a few wires and anybody can do it , it is then left to an electrician to unravel the mess when it all goes wrong or an EICR is needed
The issue I see of moving wholly to radials would be the available space to locate the larger CU's needed to accommodate more circuits especially on rewires where space in the mains cupboard at times is at a premium.
If we do move to a radials only installation format should we the ditch the 13A socket and fused plugs, it wasn't that many years ago a pan European plug and socket was discussed but seemed to fall by the wayside because the new design could not favour any member state or manufacturer should this be revived or are we then going to debate the enhanced safety aspect of the 13A plug and socket which was only introduced because of the introduction ring circuit
If it ever happens that it is radials only I can see the next debate now "the 20th edition regs say radials only so how do I code an installation that has ring circuits", may be we need a "1984 section" to debate possible future regs now could make interesting reading for someone in 20 - 30 years time
The spurring of other sockets from either circuit is the one that generally leads to most of the problems, while the professionals may split a ring and extend it the accepted DIY method is just to spur from the nearest socket.
The problem is the DIY guy who sees 2 cables looped at a socket and has not got the ability or equipment to identify whether it is a ring or a radial and spurs off it to a new socket
When designing circuits the ring provides a flexibility that in some situations would need several radials to give a similar outcome, look at any 1930's property that hasn't been rewired where radials have been extended and in some cases have ended up as rings
The fault finding and inspect and test nightmare normally only shows it's head on older installations that have had many alterations and extensions over a number of years from any number of DIYers and / or builders who believe it is only a few wires and anybody can do it , it is then left to an electrician to unravel the mess when it all goes wrong or an EICR is needed
The issue I see of moving wholly to radials would be the available space to locate the larger CU's needed to accommodate more circuits especially on rewires where space in the mains cupboard at times is at a premium.
If we do move to a radials only installation format should we the ditch the 13A socket and fused plugs, it wasn't that many years ago a pan European plug and socket was discussed but seemed to fall by the wayside because the new design could not favour any member state or manufacturer should this be revived or are we then going to debate the enhanced safety aspect of the 13A plug and socket which was only introduced because of the introduction ring circuit
If it ever happens that it is radials only I can see the next debate now "the 20th edition regs say radials only so how do I code an installation that has ring circuits", may be we need a "1984 section" to debate possible future regs now could make interesting reading for someone in 20 - 30 years time
You've been reading the French/German plus a few other EU countries Regulations.
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I expected better of you Pete.
Let's bin the radial we have been using them a lot longer than the ring
Only twice as many radials I think there could be a lot more than that
N
nicebutdim
By that logic, countries that don't use RFCs would have to start using them.
Two 20A radials might be ideal upstairs, but those circuits might end metres apart and a short length of cable would mean half the expenditure on protective devices, along with saving a way in the CU. Equally there could be situations where an upstairs ring is impractical for various reasons and 2x radials would be the better option. There are an unlimited number of examples which can be presented in favour of either option and I'm not sure that taking a blinkered view in preference of a single option is a good idea.
Rather than consider this a forwards or backwards issue, would it not be better to install whatever circuit is most appropriate in any given situation? I'm not advocating a return to 1950s practices where two rings might serve every socket in a house, but can you honestly state that you don't come across circumstances where a ring would be the most logical option?
Vortigern
Arms
So in Spain I have read of an electrician who recounted doing CUs there. He said that each appliance (in France as well apparently) had to have it's own radial. Fans could not be put on lighting circuit and so on. The upshot being, he said that a 32 way CU is quite common. Now that is insane, and if that is where anybody is suggesting advancing to, I would say it is not an advance. Given we are now trying to stuff AFDD SPD RCD into a CU. Also what are the implications of having 32 cables as against 8 for Cg?
On what do you base your facts!!
Ok a radial is one cable until someone spurs of it somewhere in the middle not so easy to test then and not as foolproof as you would like it to be
With regard to incomplete rings, actually I don't think I've had more than a dozen incomplete rings in 40 years of doing PIR / EICR's although I have found quite a few loose connections, as I have never kept count of the number of PIR / EICR's I have done it's impossible to know what the percentage is but it is extremely low
I have found some interesting ring configurations in that time that have caused some head scratching and have had issues that needed resolving but that is the nature of the job when you are battling the DIYer
It is just as easy to overload a radial as it is a ring, high loads are not just reserved for rings in fact most high loads are installed on radials
I think you need to find a better argument for dissing the ring
Except they are not.
Yes, it turns out GN3 does not specify the N to be tested (just L&E for Zs and polarity) but that does not make them faster to test to the same standard.
With a ring figure-of-8 test you get a very good indication of a bad joint as even 0.05 ohm extra will stand out. Yes, it could be a spur (see earlier) but it is easier to be sure than having to compute the cable length & resulting expected resistance for a radial.
How many radials with CPC open that did not show up as a fault to the customer?
Yes, an open L or N on radial is immediately obvious, but an open E is not and far more dangerous as several outlets could be impacted, where as the ring would probably only have one socket open E (if at all).
Also the open ring is less of an overheating risk than immediately though - yes one leg is down to 2.5mm on a 32A MCB but the other live conductor that is still part of the ring will have its current shared, so you don't have as much total heat from the T&E combination as you might initial imagine from the loads on that leg, and you would expect faults to be anywhere so many open rings would be about half way anyway.
Why?
Do you expect many householders to think "Oh yes I have a ring circuit so I can put on at least 8kW of load these 4 13A sockets, but those are on a radial so I must keep it down a bit"?
Of course they don't do that!
If you have that sort of an overload it is down to bad design, and if the person installing stuff is not able to do the design and deal with the usual suspects for overload such as ovens, etc, that are already supposed to go on radials, why are they doing electrician work?
R
radiohead
N
nicebutdim
That ties in with the point I was making on the previous page.
20 years from now, radial circuits being installed today will also be altered and spurred from. While this may not introduce the same potential for overloading of cables as it does with rings, it will still cause headaches with testing to with multiple end points.
As I understand things; radials are easy to test when they are linear in form - just as rings are when unadulterated - once those basic forms are deviated from, matters become less straightforward. No matter what regulations are in place, DIY will never stop and professionals wont always follow best practices.
Hi everyone,
If...
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