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Outside power as a spur from a ring |
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| message from Martin Pentreath on 18 May 2004 |
I need electricity outside in order to run a small water feature and
some lights, nothing heavy duty. Taking a cable right back to the
consumer unit will be a pain due to the layout of the house. Is it OK
to run two fused spurs off the kitchen ring, one for the fountain the
other for the lights? Or should I reconcile myself to lifting
floorboards and chasing plaster? I'm aware of the need for RCD
protection.
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| usenet replied to Martin Pentreath on 18 May 2004 |
Why two spurs, the current for lights and a fountain pump will be
tiny.
You can get fused RCD spurs by the way to make it even simpler.
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| Martin Pentreath replied to usenet on 18 May 2004 |
Thanks for the advice (and Chris). I was planning on two spurs because I
wanted the pump and the lights to be independently controllable. I suppose I
could have a single spur protected by one RCD device and then split it
radially after the RCD and switched separately?
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| Andy Hall replied to Martin Pentreath on 18 May 2004 |
Yes you could, and I was going to suggest that.
You could have one spur with, say, a 5A fuse and RCD and then after it
use a double gang light switch to control the pump and the lights.
If you are talking about a lot of halogen type lights then you can
easily get to over 1kW and at that point need to have a higher
capacity circuit for the lighting. In that case, it might work out
less expensive to have two spur units and make the switch on each the
operating one.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
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| Lurch replied to Set Square on 18 May 2004 |
It is.
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| Lurch replied to Andy Hall on 18 May 2004 |
That's how I usually do it, as there are normelly only a few low
wattage lights in an ornamental arrangement.
If there's a lot of high power lighting you could run the supply
through an RCD spur with a 10A fuse then through a 10A two gang switch
and fit an unswitched fused spur to protect the pump with a 3A fuse or
whatever it requires to one side of it and leave the full 10A, less
the rating of the pump, for the lighting.
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| Christian McArdle replied to Martin Pentreath on 18 May 2004 |
That should be fine, unless the water feature or lighting is high power
(i.e. a big fountain or floodlights). Kitchen rings are often highly loaded
with high power appliances, so there isn't much spare for always on
equipment. A couple of light bulbs and a tiny pump shouldn't make too much
difference, but check their ratings and check how much other stuff you've
got in the kitchen, or you'll be getting nuisance trips or overheated
cables. I actually have a separate 32A radial for the dishwasher/washing
machine/tumble dryer, so my kitchen ring is hardly loaded at all.
I would ensure that the RCD protection is done via an RCD fused spur (I'd
only use one shared one, not two like you suggested, as they are expensive
and ugly). If the kitchen ring is protected already at the consumer unit
(which I would recommend), then I would probably find another circuit to
use, as the outside electrics are quite likely to blow the RCD, which will
be particularly bad if you don't have a non-RCD fridge circuit.
Christian.
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Archived message: Outside power as a spur from a ring (UK D-I-Y House Improvement)
