can you explain a bedsitter unit for us yanks?
Just to add to Ash's description, the name is derived from
bedroom/
sitting room, the latter being a variant British term for lounge or living room.
Bedsits are commonly found in old parts of town where a big sprawling Victorian house has been divided up into individual accommodations. They often have shared kitchens and bathrooms.
Ash,
You mentioned a feed to a boiler, so do you have oil/gas-fired central heating in the place rather than individual electric room heaters? That would help keep the loads down in each room, although I assume that you have the ubiquitous kettle in each room, and maybe even some microwave ovens or hotplates.
Whether the total expected load after applying diversity exceeds the supply rating could well be down to such issues, although two 7kW+ showers might be the main cause for concern, especially as I would say they are quite likely to be running together and at the same time as cooking loads.
The second (32A) breaker has three 2.5mm T&E (Our equivilent to Romex??) attached and isolates the boiler and ??, but as individual circuits each wire would not be rated for that 30A breaker (a story in its self - notice the discolouration of the panel above it).
Yes, Romex is the nearest American equivalent of our T&E, or 6242Y. I missed that discoloration first time, but looking more closely it's definitely visible as a track above that MCB.
I find that in a lot of these old places a circuit which clearly started out as a ring has been broken at some point during modifications, then extra loads have been piled onto the two separate halves until overloading takes place.
we'd be pretty miffed at having to put another 50p in the meter every few hours!
And if the meters actually take 50p. coins, maybe the owner didn't want to go to the expense of changing the mechanisms when the smaller coins were introduced a few years ago?
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-13-2004).]