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Question about oven and hob installation

MikeD

Six years ago we had a new kitchen installed. The cooker circuit is radial with a 32A MCB. To this the electrician fitted a cooker socket control unit and a separate 13A switched fused spur.

The induction hob is rated at 3kW and was fitted with a plug into the cooker switch socket. The oven was 2.99kW and was hard wired to the separate switch box.

The cooker socket and fused spur are fitted to the back of a cupboard adjacent to the oven. Is this permitted? Also, the big red switch isn't connected to anything.

The oven died recently and was replaced with a unit from Ikea rated at 2.6kW, but the manual says it requires a minimum 16A fuse. Why?

Does that mean the installation doesn't meet regulations? Should he have used a DIN rail connector with two 16A MCBs?

Mike

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  • 0

    Those sort of socket and 'big red switch' type things are normally used for a hard wired cooker, which I presume was assumed might be an option, when the 32A line was first put in ("I want a circuit putting in for my  cooker" gets you one of those...).

    If not, a double socket might have been more sense. Also in that case having it on show in a place you can use it in an emergency might have been a lot more sense as well. Not much point in having an isolator where you cannot get to it faster than you can reach the consumer unit if there is a fire. "When every second counts, safety is only minutes away"  is not a good design mantra, and may be worth pause for thought, though as l it does nothing anyway in this case I presume you isolate elsewhere.  Its not exactly against the letter of the regs, except the bit about good workmanship perhaps, and it is electrically safe, but jammed in there it does not have the look of well thought out.

    Most EU standard single phase kit has instructions that  mentions 16A as that is the common breaker size. Only in the UK do we have fused plugs, and we are not a significant market to justify a special version. A 2.7kW load  will almost certainly be fine in practice on a 13A fuse, in a suitably bosky holder, but while a 13A fuse will take 13A all day, some of the more weedy designs of plugs, and some fused spurs for that matter, are not that great at getting the heat out, and are only really good for intermittent use. Equally, an oven that warms up and then pings on and off once at temperature is not really a steady load anyhow.  That location does not look well ventilated either, so probably should be de-rated a bit. Some engineering judgement needed.

    Mike.

  • 0 in reply to mapj1

    Thank you very much for your helpful reply. Although the red switch does nothing, the hob and oven have their own switches, albeit at the back of the cupboard. As it's all run happily for six years and the new oven has a lower rating I won't be looking to upgrade it.

    Mike

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  • 0 in reply to mapj1

    Thank you very much for your helpful reply. Although the red switch does nothing, the hob and oven have their own switches, albeit at the back of the cupboard. As it's all run happily for six years and the new oven has a lower rating I won't be looking to upgrade it.

    Mike

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