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Domestic Power Wiring - Upstairs & Downstairs

I have surveyed a house and have observed a domestic ring circuit which is serves a floor area exceeding 100m2, including upstairs, downstairs and utility containing (washing machine and tumble dryer) (kitchen ring is separate). I am ok with this circuit contravening the 100m2 guidance, and not being respective to the load of the whitegoods, but I understand there is guidance on a domestic ring only covering a single level.

Can somebody point me towards this guidance either in published Guidance Notes or the Regulations.

Thanks

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  • What possible relevance can a blanket 100 square meters have?

    Are the areas 10 x 10 (40 all the way around) or 25 x 4 (58 all the way around) or 10 x 5 (30) with one 50 sq.m. on top of another? 

  • What possible relevance can a blanket 100 square meters have?
    Buried in the mists of time, and back then it was actually 1000 square feet, but given the roughness of the calculation, who cares ;  it was considered the area in which the use of more than 2 lots of 3kW of electric heating at once was unlikely - based on the kind of glow bar portable electric fires of the period, and how many fireplaces a normal house of that sort of size might have.

    Nowadays you will struggle to find a 3 bar fire, and folk do not use the building as if there is just a fireplace in the  sitting room and the parlour  and the rest is unheated unless someone is ill.

    The utilitarian Belling 213 for the living room My grandparents had the later coal effect model where a little disk span above the red light bulb to give 'flame effect'


    The grander Adam 916 for those wanting to entertain impressionabe  guests ;-) Mind that finger guard, it is quite possible to touch the spring elements

    In mitigation reducing the ring load, most houses now have double glazing and no longer have doors that fit so badly a limbo dancer is a likely hazard, these effects have more or less compensated, and in any case fixed heaters are likely not on the ring, if indeed it is not gas.

    Looked at it a more modern  way whatever the appliance is (except perhaps an air con unit or an extractor fan..) all the energy that is drawn via the plug eventually heats up the building and how much heat do you sensibly want in a given space before it gets overheated.

    Now there will always be odd cases, like large kitchens where the heat is needed but then pumped outside, but for a lot of simple cases a constant power per area assumption is a good start of no other info is available and usually is not too far off.

    But it is not sensible for example if the circuit serves a garden, or some really draughty space. And certainly if there is real data about intended fixed loads,  say workshops or kitchens, then really data that should be used instead.

    Mike.

  • Looked at it a more modern  way whatever the appliance is (except perhaps an air con unit or an extractor fan..) all the energy that is drawn via the plug eventually heats up the building and how much heat do you sensibly want in a given space before it gets overheated.

    Yes, but ...

    Washing machine heats up the water (but may be only to 30º C, which isn't going to kill off any microbes) and later dumps it down the drain. Tumble drier, if vented, blows all the hot air out of the building.

    That said, an unvented standard tumble drier can make a kitchenette in Army accommodation staggeringly hot.

  • Nor myself or the IET Guidance Note suggest "a blanket 100 square meters".

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  • Nor myself or the IET Guidance Note suggest "a blanket 100 square meters".

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