Dramatic BUT I had an electrician in to put all new sockets in, everything great, installed my oven and hob (in the process of renovating the whole house mainly by myself so wanted a working kitchen) tiled backsplash and around worktop then DISASTER went to install my cooker hood and realised I hadn't factored this is when I had my electrician round so no socket for this. D'OH *slaps forehead*!! I'm not electrics expert so would like to know my options. I have assessed the situation and come up with two solutions that wouldn't require me to un-tile my beautifully tiled kitchen. A) Can an electrician install a point above my wall units coming down from the ceiling (so from the upstairs electrics), B) There is an isolation switch for my oven, can they change that so that the oven and hood are fused to the same switch then run the wires up the sode of my cabinet which will then be hidden by the end panel. Requiring only the removal of two tiles. Image below. The oven is 10A the hood 3A
Does the wiring for the sockets come from above, you might be able to break into the ring above the wall cupboard where it can't be seen. What sort of hood is it, does it have a flyover shelf?
I would go with your first option. A feed could be taken from the lighting circuit. Alternatively the feed could come from a socket circuit via a fused spur.
Wiring comes from below as it was done before the new kitchen went in. Cooker hood has no flyover shelf and it just a curved glass hood
There is a new socket upstairs almost directly above where the hood will go. Would the hood need to be attached to the wall before an electrician comes or would this make it awkward? Know enough about electrics to be able to wire it to a socket myself or does it have to be done by a registered electrician?
As it's a new socket it might be a spur from a ring final circuit in which case you can't take another spur from it.
If its a chimney type hood that touches the ceiling then just wire a single socket on the wall behind it and drop a cable down from the upstairs ring circuit. Not ideal being on a different supply to the rest of the kitchen but not a disaster either. I wouldn't worry about RCD protection or a spur off a spur for a small appliance like that either.
That would be the easiest way, Danielle. Drop the feed down from the room above even if it means filling and redecorating the wall above the extractor hood. Taking the tiles off is a no-no, there's always a way. You could as a last resort take the flex outside and back in again from the room above if need be. It's not a 'notifiable' job as it's only an addition to an existing circuit but take note of senecas point about spurring from a spur.
But you don't want to be in a position where you can't isolate it in case of a problem. Ideally it would be plugged in with the plug accessible, (i.e. not hidden behind the hood!), or via an accessible switch. If you don't have either of these then the only means of isolation would be at the consumer unit. Definitely not ideal, and though I'm not qualified to say this with authority, I suspect it might be against the rules. Good luck with it all anyway. Be good to see how it's resolved. Regards, Cando
Someone on here the other week posted that you don't even need a local isolator for an electric cooker or oven, so if true I doubt you'd need one for a cooker hood. Maybe even down the cavity from above under the floor, relatively easy if there is a core hole through it for the extraction. As said, there's always a way.
I think I'd also go for the first option. Decide on location for a FSU (fused switched neon thingy) close to where the chimney will go so's it's identifiable but not an eye sore - sink a back box for it in to the wall. Then drop the spurred cable from behind the upstairs socket straight vertically down to the FSU, and the switched supply from the FSU straight horizontally across to the hood. A simple chase in the wall will see these wires all covered and invisible, and folk should know that cables could be running vert and horiz from that FSU. 3A fuse. I personally wouldn't lose sleep over the possibility of that upstairs socket already being spurred - a cooker hood ain't going to make any more difference to it.
You can’t wire the hood direct to a socket - if that’s what your thinking ? Well, yes you can and hood will work but it’s not right Hood needs to be protected by 3/5 amp fuse, either via a 3pin plug or fused connection unit - not simply connected to upstairs socket
I meant that theres electrics directly above. It would take a pretty long cable to plug my cooker hood in the kitchen into my bedroom sockets...
I'd probably put the isolator switch above the hood or above my wall units, which wouldnt be visible from the floor but still accessible.
Putting a switch or socket accessible to control the fan is always ideal. It will make it easier if you ever have a fault in the future tripping your rcd and you want to isolate all the appliances to eliminate them all including the fan.