Looking back through this thread, I'd like to pull out one of David's point for the ring circuit:
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Providing it is correctly designed, it allows a lot of sockets to be installed on a circuit with little chance of over-loading.(Kitchens excepted.)

The correctly designed aspect is something which I feel is often overlooked, and as noted, this certainly applies to kitchen areas.

Many people latch on the "one ring for 100 sq. meters" part of the Regs., and then just blindly follow that without allowing for the anticipated load which should also figure into the design.

U.K. members will bear me out on this: How many times do you see a two-ring house with one ring for each floor? The upper-floor ring is seldom loaded to more than a very small fraction of its capacity, especially now that central heating is widespread and thus the need even for portable heaters in bedrooms has diminished.

Then you look at the ground-floor ring and find it feeding a washing machine, a clothes dryer, and a dishwasher, as well as all the kitchen outlets.

The washing machine and dishwasher heating elements are usually 3kW, although admittedly they wouldn't be considered a continuous load. But the dryer element could easily be running for two hours at a stretch.

The countertop receptacles will likely be used for toasters, microwave ovens, and all the other high-power kitchen gadgets, including in most British homes the ubiquitous electric kettle (another 2 to 3kW).

These days, people do expect to be able to run everything at once. The one-ring-per-floor arrangement was fine years ago when the average British home didn't have the high power consumption found in a modern kitchen. But I think it's time the Regs. were amended to make allowance for increased kitchen loads and that designers make a better job of distributing the load between circuits.

I concede that there is a tendency now to specify a separate kitchen ring circuit, but to my way of thinking, that achieves very little. If somebody installs a separate ring for the kitchen area, we still have all the major appliances on the one ring while the other two rings are feeding a TV and an electric blanket.

Better yet, I'd like to see separate circuits specified (NEC-style) for washers, dishwashers and, especially, tumble dryers.

P.S. I'm using the terms ground floor and upper floor here to avoid the possible confusion over what constitutes the first, second floors, etc.

For those international members who aren't aware of the differences, allow me a slight detour to explain:

In the U.S.A. first floor means the ground floor. The level directly above it is the second floor.

In Britain, first floor means the first level ABOVE the ground floor, i.e. U.K. 1st floor = U.S. 2nd floor.

So much for English being a universal language! [Linked Image]


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-20-2002).]