Washing machines

[WPD Lad]

Does anyone put these on their own radial?

 

[ringer]

Appendix 15 note (iii). Refers to cookers etc, which obviously a washing m/c is not, but is what the OP thought he had read somewhere.

 

[Adam W]

You can always put the kettle socket on it's own circuit:coffee:

Perfect for when an electrician is working on the kitchen ring.
Isn't there some reg about water heaters over a certain wattage being on their own circuit?
.. Just checked - that's for water heaters with "storage vessels in excess of 15 litres", ie big kettles.

 

[Rockingit]

Perfect for when an electrician is working on the kitchen ring.
Isn't there some reg about water heaters over a certain wattage being on their own circuit?
.. Just checked - that's for water heaters with "storage vessels in excess of 15 litres", ie big kettles.

Ermm.....as immersion heaters, basically. And, having queried it with my NICEIC assessor last inspection purely through curiosity (why you can't have a 3kW immersion on a plugtop), he in turn didn't know why it was in the regs and asked back with some senior bods at the office, and they didn't know either. Best guess is it's left in from historical purposes and simply hasn't been removed yet!

*** Just to be clear: obviously if the load of your water heater of any capacity exceeds the design capability of the circuit in question then it needs to have special treatment.

 

[Adam W]

Ermm.....as immersion heaters, basically. And, having queried it with my NICEIC assessor last inspection purely through curiosity (why you can't have a 3kW immersion on a plugtop), he in turn didn't know why it was in the regs and asked back with some senior bods at the office, and they didn't know either. Best guess is it's left in from historical purposes and simply hasn't been removed yet!

*** Just to be clear: obviously if the load of your water heater of any capacity exceeds the design capability of the circuit in question then it needs to have special treatment.

I'm pretty sure it's to do with higher earth leakage currents, in the same way as any appliance with high earth leakage (off the top of my head 3.5mA) having to go on it's own circuit or be supplied by a 16A commando plug.

BTW I checked the onsite guide halfway through my last post because I wasn't sure - I wasn't suggesting there are people using 15 litre jug kettles in their kitchen.

Edit: not on it's own circuit, on a FCU.

 

[Knobhead]

Ye gods. Just fit a radial for every socket outlet, your covered that way.
Sizewell “B” would have a smaller switchboard!

I honestly can’t understand this fascination with radials.
Fridge/freezer – Yes
Cooker – Yes

It’s a domestic kitchen for gods sake, it’s not the Ritz, nor is it McD’s serving 1000’s of plates of crap a day!

 

[WPD Lad]

Why fridge/freezer yes? They take next to nothing in load and would be harder to notice if the RCBO had tripped.

 

[D80]

There is that, but if the kitchen ring went down then the fridge/freezer would remain on. IMO its more something that better suited to commercial kitchens and if that had tripped it would be pretty quickly noticed.

 

[Rockingit]

Agreed it's something more in keeping with a commercial setup, but if you're doing a new-build/rewire then it's a very simple way of impressing Mrs Jones towards a bigger invoice with the fact that she can keep her fish fingers safe. I didn't bother in my own house when I rewired, btw.

Edit: You also, of course, need to satisfy a higher set of installation criteria if installing a socket not on an RCD and remember that it has to be labelled properly.