Tuesday 15 June 2010

Hot water cylinder arrived on Friday: As you can see, we now have a considerable pile of stuff! Most of it is for the heating/water system, but there's also a burglar alarm, LED colour changing lights, security light and some other things too in there.
We tested the LED lights last night, and they work better than I was expecting. They should be quite dramatic, we are both quite pleased with them.
A photo of the ring main electrics in the kitchen:


Some socket locations will be controlled by a panel of switches on the opposite wall, which is why the cable ends rather than moving on to the next one.

3 comments:

  1. what size cable has he used?
    have you told him that you're planning to fill the voids with insulation?

    from the position of the holes, the cable will be surrounded by insulation which means he should be fitting 6mm ring mains as 2.5mm is not large enough with the cable being de-rated by half..

    4mm cable for 16A radials too..

    this is why I sugested the service void style walls ( insulate and board internally with plywood, then batten out with 2x1 and run the cables and pipes in that void.. ) you lose about 2 inches for each void wall, but it's better than trying to use larger cables and trying to insulate behind the wires and maintain vapour barrier integrity.. ( you're piercing the barrier wherever you put a socket at the moment.. the cable has to pass through it..)

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  2. Whether you think one method is 'better' than another is up to you - we've already decided what we're going to do, and losing an inch off each wall is not an option at this stage anyway.

    I think I'll trust the person that I've personally verified is competent to do the job I've asked him to do - rather than worry about what someone on the internet says! As I recall you're not even part-p registered anwyay, so how can you comment on the work of someone who is?

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  3. Part P doesn't automatically make him a good sparky.. Plumbers can be part P registered..

    Cable de-rating is cable de-rating whether I'm part P or not.. it still applies..

    Timber frame builds like this are not all that common and what works for a brick built house as a standard circuit might not work in a timber framed house with heavily insulated walls..

    I'm only trying to point out some questions to ask to make sure you don't get a bad install..
    if you don't want any advice then fair enough, I'll stop offering it..

    I'll say this and no more on the subject, make sure your insurance is kept up to date..

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