hi all, A mate of mine wants to put some power and lights into his loft. I thought the best way to do this was use the (redundant), immersion heater spur (15amp), and maybe replace the fused switch with a small garage consumer unit and run sockets and lights out of this. Would that work? Cheers and here's hoping I don't get too slated. James.
If it is an old style 15A wired fuse rather than a breaker, then yes you could install a small garage CU which would also provide RCD protection. Make sure the MCBs are rated below 15A. B10 and B6 for sockets and lighting respectively.
A CU seems unnecessary to me. Lights can be run off the existing upstairs lighting circuit taking a feed from one of the ceiling roses. The old 15 amp immersion supply can feed 13 amp sockets directly as a radial.
For the lighting you could use this brilliant solution for the wiring? you can use this to loop off the existing lighting circuit Quickwire.co.uk
Amazingly, I have to agree in part! A switched fused spur could be used as a light switch off the radial. It does still leave the issue of rcd protection hanging though. In essence it is a new circuit.
thanks all. i put in a little CU today for him. it's a slow project - and he's very very slow! Cheers all
the thing is, the lighting circuit is a old as the house and there is not earth on that loop. he don't wanna rewire the lot. what can one do?!
So you didn't take any notice of the advice that it was unnecessary. Why do you come on here for advice if you ignore it?
Maybe what he did was to take no notice of advice which didn't take account of the lack of an RCD on the old circuits and no earth on the lighting one.
He never actually said there was no RCD. But anyway he could use a stand alone RCD, no need for a CU.