Well, the standard is to use 6mm in domestic situations and this is why the council spec 6mm with 10mm for larger cookers. We have to use 10mm as a matter of course on our showers too. We don't normally have to worry about applying diversity or any calcs because the emphasis on council jobs is speed so the brain work is generally done for you. You aren't trying to tell me thet you would be happy recommending 2.5mm to a customer with a cooker rated at 61A max?
Cirrus and Grae
think you may be missing the point gents.
Firstly why would cooking the sunday dinner make any difference.? So even if its an electric hob, main oven goes on, gets up to temp, cycles on and off, some time later rings go on the boil the spuds THIS IS CALLED DIVERSITY. 61A max would be oven, grill, fan everthing, and most ovens wont let you!!! (they have this thing called a sector switch on the front!)
And Cirrus, I assume you are familiar with ring mains. So lets say you've got a small ring with 10 doubles on it. That's 26A per outlet, so that's 260A max for the ring - but you are happy to reccomend that to a customer on 2.5 mm cable???? even connected as ring thats only 54A!!! But we dont pull 260A do we? and why not? DIVERSITY
sort of knocks your 61A max into a cocked hat, dont it!!!!
Note to forum members: look up diversity in the dictionary!!! Or even BS7671!!!!
And no, i generally wouldnt use 2.5 for a cooker, because it doesnt allow for changing the appliance to a larger one later, and is cutting it 'to the wire', but it doesnt mean i would blindly throw in 6 or 10mm either
And yes you CAN get 25A Type B 60898's. Trouble is, not many people use them (or know the exist!)
And this whole thread has proved my point. Gentleman, if we also blindly throw 6mm into a cooker, 10mm into a shower and only ever use 6, 20, 32 or 40 A MCB's we get to the point where we lose the skill to actually work these things out when we need to - as proved here.
Now and again just sit down and do a calc on that circuit, before you just become, effectively, electrical labourers
i get annoyed when i see this trade dummed down to the point where anyone could size up a circuit just by reading a leaflet from B&Q or Wickes
Rant over with
And well done to Easyfox for stating a simple diversity equation that should be common knowledge