Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!!!!

[High Tower]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

Cheers.
What is best way to label? I can get labeller and mark every socket and switch although only 1 socket circuit per flat, 1 light circuit, 1 cooker, 1 shower so 4 fuses in CU in a flat.
I could also produce a room layout plan with each socket marked on plan?
What is the best method to help sparks?
It's winter so we are closed so my time is cheap

Cheap label printer, label every circuit in each CU also label the origin where each cu is fed from.

you dont need to strip anything its just a exercises in turning circuits off and seeing what goes off,

 

[telectrix]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

as biff says, 500 - 600 is closer to the mark. as for labelling, all you need to do is label each fuse in the CU " sockets" "lights" "cooker" "shower" etc. tbh, for what you have , a sparki would ID them in 10 minutes. is not as if you have 20 circuits in the CU.

 

[SafetyFirst]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

Hi John,

As someone suggested only each sub main need to be labelled ie flat 1, flat 2 etc and shower and cooker fuse. Surely rings are red 30A fuse and lights white 5A? Mark them if you really must but as long as shower and cookers distinguished that should do.

Just do a visual scan over each socket, light fitting etc make sure nothings damaged, just obvious things really.

It ought to be fairly straight forward to test each flat, nothing much to them by the sounds of it, if you need to keep costs down to the min what with a hefty DNO bill i'd try and get someone in at half the price if poss.Or 600, 100 per flat including sub main supplies.

They must think they're onto a good number asking 1K!

I think an upgrade of each consumer unit as minimum with RCD protection would be a good move, wait and see if any faults come back with wiring first.

How old is the wiring do you know as a rough guess?

Good luck with it all btw!

 

[john999uk]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

Cheers everyone. I will be going round checking each fitting for damage and basic polarity and earth connections (cheap simple plugin test plug). I will also check and label the circuits. Wiring age is a difficult one. There is one 'rubber' cable rest are PVC. The CU next to main has MCB's but there are also an old brown wood backed CU with rewirables.

 

[ayjay]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

if theres a rubber cable those units must be ancient
i would be far more concerned with the wiring in each chalet than the 100a supply

 

[nikmet]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

as regards the 100A supply, power up 1 of your flats and get an approx reading of demand, using a clamp current meter, you can always multiply it by however many flats youve got occupied-will give you a better idea

 

[Guest55]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

as regards the 100A supply, power up 1 of your flats and get an approx reading of demand, using a clamp current meter, you can always multiply it by however many flats youve got occupied-will give you a better idea

which totally ignores the concept of diversity.

 

[baldelectrician]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

I would suggest you have the consumer units in each flat changed to a split load dual RCD units (or RCBO units - dearer but alot better)

Get this done first, and the flats will be tested then
You may need to beef up your submains and bonding.
New CU's are a must and checking the 'rubber' cable and replacing is also top of the agenda

 

[nikmet]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

which totally ignores the concept of diversity.

Sorry, your right, DON'T take a current measurement, it may not be the reading we WANT lol

 

[Guest55]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

Sorry, your right, DON'T take a current measurement, it may not be the reading we WANT lol

ok then , go into one of the flats , turn on shower , oven and lights , then measure current at the flat CU.
lets just say its 40amps.
multiply that by the number of flats ( 6 ) = 240amps supplied by a 100amp fuse.
so what does that tells us ?
absolute sweet FA.

 

[nikmet]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

Sorry, your right again, tells us nothing lol

 

[john999uk]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

Anyone know where I can find out how to calculate diversity or is it too complex without experience. My maths is or used to be very good (ONC/HNC electronic eng) so I am OK with maths.
Thanks

 

[telectrix]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

diversity calcs. are a bit hit and miss. there's no set rule. 1 spark might say 90A and another 50A on the same job. it's more down to the likelyhood of how many items of equipment are in use atr the same time, and there's no hard and fast formula. this is a case where experience overules theory.

 

[High Tower]

Simples

 

[Guest55]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

of course if you want to do it properly you'd fit a powerlogger at the mains and record usage over a 7 day period.

 

[Guest55]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

memo to high tower ;

move thumb out of way when taking pics.
lol.

 

[High Tower]

memo to high tower ;

move thumb out of way when taking pics.
lol.

Lmao!!, I was wondering how long until someone critiqued my photography skills. If the op pm's me his email I'll scan the page and send it to him

 

[Des 56]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

Why worry about your maths or what different guides tell you ?
You have already had your diversity calculations done for you,, by the supplier (or at least in this instance by the suppliers fuse)

That automatic calculation has shown the capacity to be adequate over x amount of years


These automatic diversity calculators are pretty efficient :yes:
If the supply capacity was not adequate,it can and will curtail that calculation

 

[john999uk]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

That table is a great help in understanding things. Seems to like we don't really fit in either 'individual dwellings inside a block' or 'small hotel, guest house'. If I, as a layman, were to guess I would say more like domestic as normally each apartment let to a different family with different age kids etc so different routines and no central kitchen (as guest house would have to cook all meals at same time).
But as you guys say it's down to individual spark who is doing the cert as it's his/her name on cert.

Thanks for info, I am learning a lot. Thanks.

 

[brman]

Re: Holiday Flats - electrical test - consumer units - supply cables - very worried!

out of interest would anyone here give an unsatisfactory on an EICR if demand calcs gave greater than the DNO fuse? Assuming there were no reports of the fuse going and no signs of overload of course.
There is no maximum demand noted on the cert for an EICR and I have never done a diversity calc when doing a inspection. Am I doing it wrong?

I ask because it sounds like the spark that has quoted is suggesting a unsatisfactory just because of this.........

John: Just to back up what has already been said, I asked an elecsa technical guy what to do when diversity calcs exceeded the fuse. The reply was "If the fuse hasn't blown, what are you worried about?"