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Point of interest if contemplating new electric cooker


Belatucadrus
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During our recent oven installation the engineer checked the fuse box, confirmed that there was an RCD or residual current device in place and part of the test procedure involved confirming that it worked as designed. He also mentioned that if the house has an older fuse wire based system with no RCD he wasn't permitted to make the installation and only recently had had to explain this to a gentleman who'd purchased a new hob and oven and wasn't best pleased when told he couldn't have either.

So with the proviso that this may be a Currys policy and perhaps not be due to mandatory H & S regulations. If you want a new electrical device that needs installation and your house wiring has no RCD, check up with the supplier before passing with the readies, having them turn up then about face and go home without doing anything would be irritating.

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The problem seems to be not so much the nature of the supply cable, rather the inclusion of an RCD which for some perhaps all fitters needs to be in place and testable. Our house is about fifty years old and when built had a standard old tech fuse box installed, which was up to building standards at the time and may well be entirely adequate for day to day use. When dad had the generator connection and selector box installed he also had the fuse box updated to the latest standards with all RCDs, in this case the update has proved fortuitous. It may be that an old style trip switch would have been sufficient, I don't know, certainly modern ones have an RCD but how far back in time the technology goes ? 

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The other factor is that the older houses have VIR insulated wiring (vulcanised India rubber) which hardens and cracks over the years (sometimes the insulation falls off) and can be dangerous, especially at termination points. The lack of a consumer unit with RCD protection is an indication that the wiring is possibly old and could be in poor condition. Nowadays you may find it difficult to sell a house with the old wiring because the building survey would report it and put buyers off.

 

 

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Our house was built in 1965 and has up to date cables. I paid extra at the time for a Crabtree consumer unit with trip switches. Since then when had a new shower I had this replaced with a modern one. The installer said that in future , if using a plug in lawnmower I would no longer need to plug it into an RCD adapter 

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We bought a farm house and a few out buildings many years ago. We decided it was time we took in mother and father and looked after them in their later years. Before we bought it we looked round and things did not look bad at all. It had a new large distribution box dated only a couple of years ago. and everything was on new switches and sockets. We bought it.

One day, a month or two after moving in, a fuse went and I had to go into the distribution box to set matters right. What I found defies belief.  Most the wire in the house was old lead covered stuff that had not been moved for years and some of it was just cotton covered. How the local electrician had the audacity to just put a new distribution board on to an outdated system and  put his name to it absolutely beats me.

When I got up into the roof space, where the bulk of the wires were, I was staggered by the amount of wire I would have to replace to make the system line up with the then current rules. The local electrician would not admit to anything even though his card was there.

 

I ended up ripping out every bit of wire and replacing it with the correct new wire for every light and power in the house and flat (and later on garage).

 

The two old dears in the cottage were not at all pleased and were too stubborn to try to understand why it was necessary to have all this trouble.

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