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Which is best, long ring final with 2 spurs or short ring final with more spurs?
Former Community Member
Good afternoon, hope you are all well. I have been re-evaluating the number and position of sockets in my bungalow, and considering having a few more added for convenience. Currently I seem to have a relatively short ring with 2 long spurs. If I measure the new route for cables incorporating the existing spurs and new sockets, I anticipate a total cable run of about 100m. From what I gather on this forum this is the limit for a ring final per 100m square of floor. Question is, is this a good idea, or should the ring final be made to run a shorter route and add more spurs, not exceeding the number of sockets on the ring, in order to keep volt drop to within acceptable limits. Not being an electrician I have used online cable size calculators to see if my idea is anywhere close to being ok and they come back with a huge 25mm squared cable. I am clearly out of my depth here hence the question. As always, many thanks in advance. Kind regards, Simon
simon201: Hi Chris, to clarify, I meant 100m for the new ring with two 5m spurs. apologies for the confusion in the question. kind regards Simon
I'm still not quite clear. Is it a 100 m "ring", which could be squashed into avery tight oval, + 5 m spurs?
As a rule of thumb, if you are installing a ring and the drum of cable runs out (been there, done that) you may need to think about a couple of things.
(1) is the Zs within the acceptable limit? No reason why it should not be.
(2) Is there a problem with voltage drop? If you are not going to plug in a 3 kW heater half way around the ring, there is nothing to worry about. And even if you did, it might run a few volts down and, therefore be 2 and a bit kW.
I may be missing something, but these rules of thumb are not always helpful.
simon201: Hi Chris, to clarify, I meant 100m for the new ring with two 5m spurs. apologies for the confusion in the question. kind regards Simon
I'm still not quite clear. Is it a 100 m "ring", which could be squashed into avery tight oval, + 5 m spurs?
As a rule of thumb, if you are installing a ring and the drum of cable runs out (been there, done that) you may need to think about a couple of things.
(1) is the Zs within the acceptable limit? No reason why it should not be.
(2) Is there a problem with voltage drop? If you are not going to plug in a 3 kW heater half way around the ring, there is nothing to worry about. And even if you did, it might run a few volts down and, therefore be 2 and a bit kW.
I may be missing something, but these rules of thumb are not always helpful.
