UK Should vending hot drinks machines with thermostatic water heaters be classed as fixed equipment?

[george brown]

I'm looking at a vending hot drinks machine 2.9kW that has a thermostatically controlled hot water tank permanently attached to a water supply that is just plugged into a radial 16A circuit with a 13A three pin plug. The machine is continuously on. The circuit is also used continuously for a computer system with multiple screens and almost everything else incl Microwave within a small commercial office property.

I've suggested the vending machine should be on a separate dedicated circuit as I believe I should class the vending machine as fixed equipment and not portable. Looking at the regulations for fixed equipment and dedicated circuits I'm struggling to find definitive answers. Health and safety at work regs say anything over 18Kg isn't classed as portable equipment, but movable equipment. and bs7671 states a few things on water heated vessels. Regulation 554.1.2: electrode water heaters shall have a linked circuit breaker disconnecting the supply from all electrodes simultaneously etc, etc (does that mean fitting a double pole isolator switch?)

and ring final circuit arrangements 433.1.204 suggest cookers, ovens and hobs over 2kW be on their own dedicated circuits, but nothing for radial socket circuits.

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[Avo Mk8]

Regulation 554.1.2: electrode water heaters shall have a linked circuit breaker disconnecting the supply from all electrodes simultaneously etc, etc (does that mean fitting a double pole isolator switch?)

An electrode water heater passes current directly through the water to heat it. It's very likely not the type of heater in the machine, which I suspect is an immersion heater, so that reg is probably not applicable here.

Later addition: I agree you can consider the drinks machine 'fixed equipment' but I don't think that helps find any direct non-compliance with regulations as the setup stands, other that 'good practice'!

 

[loz2754]

I've suggested the vending machine should be on a separate dedicated circuit as I believe I should class the vending machine as fixed equipment and not portable. Looking at the regulations for fixed equipment and dedicated circuits I'm struggling to find definitive answers

There is no reason for an item of fixed equipment to be on its own dedicated circuit just because it is fixed equipment. There may be other reasons though, such as manufacturer instructions, special location equipment such as EV chargers etc, and also design considerations such as the possibility of overloading a circuit that has other items connected to it.