Am fitting a kitchen and the owner wants two extra double sockets above worktops.He has a socket(double) already in place which I plan to take a spur off.Also he has a cooker switch with one single socket on the same faceplate.Can I take a spur off this?One other thing.He is having backboards fitted to the wall above worktops.Do I really need to bury the cables in the wall or could I use trunking to convey the cable or even just cable clips.Would I use metal socket boxes or plastic mounted ones.
If you plan to take a spur from an existing socket, make sure that the original is not already a spur. Can't spur from a spur. especially in a kitchen where every socket might be highly loaded! Dont know about permissability of spurring from a cooker point. The socket power needs to be taken into account along with the cooker rating to determine breaker size... or to put it the other way about, you would only be able to connect a less powerful cooker because the breaker/cable is already there.
What I meant was, a cable back to the original power source from a second spur.A kind of circuit.Is that feasible or downright dodgy?
Can you spur from a spur if you run a cable back to the original socket? If you can get to the original socket, ie the one in the final ring circuit that is feeding the spur, disconnect one of the ring circuit cables connect this directly to the cable that is going to the spur, then bring another cable back from the spur to re-establish the ring. Hope that makes sense. Basically you are extending the ring to include the first spur, so allowing you to add the second one. On the cooker front, I don't think you are allowed to spur from cooker outlets, as you would be changing cable size without fusing to the smaller cable's current capacity. Not positive about this though.
Thanks RES.Got your drift.Thought it was dodgy on the old cooker front,so best left alone.Appreciate all advice.
Like I said I'm not 100% sure about the cooker, but I think you'd be safer doing the extended ring trick.
Yep agree definitely better to enlarge the ring. As regards cable size for spurring off a cooker socket, might depend on the initial supply rating. If it is already on a 32A breaker then the 2,5mm extension spur would be exactly the same cable overload as for a spur from a ring, which is permitted. Otherwise, i too was wondering exactly what the rules are about overloaded cables in this kind of context. Possibly the spur from a ring is a special case.The risk of serious overload in such a cas is relatively small. Anyway, I wouldnt really fancy adding an extra socket load to a 32A cooker supply.
Agree here about extending ring. What about the Diversity allowance for cooker points? Don't think you are permitted to spur off a cooker point - especially if it already has a built-in 13A skt.
We had never had an electric cooker so I had taken a spur off the plate to put outlets on the other side of the room. We had our house rented, by my sister in law, for a time. She had an electric cooker fitted & the sparkie disconnected the cable & cut it off where it went behind a wall unit. That made sure it couldn't be reconnected. I had to take up the upstairs floorboards to put a junction box in to feed that outlet. Never had an electric cooker since but the outlet he installed has an outlet on it. 30 amps going into a 13 amp plug. lol
30 amp supply to a 13 amp socket is normal. Thats what a ring does. The plug has a 13A fuse to limit things a bit.