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Domestic electrical advice please


iain m

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When we moved to our present house we had a considerable number of GU10/50Watt light fitting installed in the hallways and landing. The recommendations at the time were  a separate fused circuit for every 10 lamps which proved rather expensive at the time. We are hopefully moving shortly and the CEO would like similar lighting, we are at present using low capacity GU10/6 Watt LED lamps so the question is how many of these can be installed on the existing lighting circuit without having to install additional MCBs and cables????    

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Not that I know anything about electrickery...

 

...but surely a low current draw due to the leds makes the need for addition fusing pontless IMIO (second i = ignorant!)

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When we moved to our present house we had a considerable number of GU10/50Watt light fitting installed in the hallways and landing. The recommendations at the time were  a separate fused circuit for every 10 lamps which proved rather expensive at the time. We are hopefully moving shortly and the CEO would like similar lighting, we are at present using low capacity GU10/6 Watt LED lamps so the question is how many of these can be installed on the existing lighting circuit without having to install additional MCBs and cables? ???    

 

As many as you like...............

 

However im pretty sure in designing such a layout, it would have to be designed to take regular incandescent bulbs, whether you use LED or not.

Just image some plonker buying the house and fitting normal bulbs at some time in the future. I mean the fittings themselves will be marked 50w :(

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As many as you like...............

 

However im pretty sure in designing such a layout, it would have to be designed to take regular incandescent bulbs, whether you use LED or not.

Just image some plonker buying the house and fitting normal bulbs at some time in the future. I mean the fittings themselves will be marked 50w :(

That's correct, the circuit would have to be designed with this 'worst case scenario' in mind.

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In order to calculate it you would need to know the cable size and length to work out the voltage drop and maximum current allowable.

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Power = Current x volts so a 6amp MCB (Miniture circuit breaker) x 230 Volts - 1380 Watts

 

With low energy LED's this equates to lots of them.

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It is actually a little more complicated than that.

Distances, cable sizes, existing loads, building fabric and insulation have to be taken into consideration. Please please get an electrician involved...

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That's correct, the circuit would have to be designed with this 'worst case scenario' in mind.

Food for thought, isn't it? But then again, if that was the case your 32amp ring main wouldn't consist of mor than 2-3 13amp outlets.... Like I say, far more to it than seems simple

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Food for thought, isn't it? But then again, if that was the case your 32amp ring main wouldn't consist of mor than 2-3 13amp outlets.... Like I say, far more to it than seems simple

 

And yet your cooker circuit must be designed for the maximum load the cooker is capable of, that's literally everything turned on at the same time, typically around 30A to one single appliance which in reality will never happen.

 

It's quite bizarre the lengths you have to go to, to compensate for human stupidity :laugh:

 

Your ring main is usually 24A cable, connected in a ring, hence ring main (for those who don't know where the term comes from :) ), if you ring main had only one socket you'd see 2 x 24A cables connected in parallel, so effectively that's a 48A cable protected by a 32A circuit breaker. If you attach 5 x 2kw fan heaters it'd trip the mcb, but it wouldn't over rate the cable.

 

I guess on the light circuit, because it's not a ring main, if you designed it for LED bulbs and then some plonker fits standard incandescent bulbs, it'd overload the circuit and risk a fire. You'd imagine nobody could be this silly, but it does happen.

 

All this health and safety, whatever happened to good old Darwins theory? it's no wonder I meet so many dumb people every day! Do away with it and I reckon the roads would always be lovely and clear for a weekend blat :p

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Thanks for all the useful information, I had a feeling it would not be a yes/no situation so will get an expert in to adhere to whatever the present regulations are.

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It is actually a little more complicated than that.

Distances, cable sizes, existing loads, building fabric and insulation have to be taken into consideration. Please please get an electrician involved...

That would be me then.

The cable size would have been designed to carry more than what the breaker size is so if you are only replacing light fittings and not altering the length of cable or exceeding the load on the breaker then there won't be a problem.

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