Shower Room to Utility Room conversion

[tlangdon12]

I have a shower room on the ground floor at the rear of my house. The radial circuit to the shower is 10mm cable protected by a 40A MCB, due to the distance to the shower room from the CU.

I'm looking to take the shower unit out of the room and convert the room into a utility room, to house a washing machine and (electric) tumble drier.

I will use a qualified electrician to do the work, but just wanted to check a couple of things to see what might be involved:

Q1) The shower room current has a hand-basin and toilet, will it be acceptable under the regs to have low level power sockets in the same room? (I'm proposing to fit a work surface over the new appliances.) Do the sockets need to be a set distance away from the hand-basin/toilet? Is an RCD going to be needed because the power will be in a 'wet' room?

Q2) As the CU won't take a RCD (it's too old to get one to fit), is the only option going to be to put an RCBO in a waterproof enclosure where the ceiling-mounted shower isolation switch is, and switch to 2.5mm cable on the load side of the RCBO? And are there any cheaper/better/other ways of achieving the same end?

Many thanks

Tony L.

 

[Deleted member 9648]

I have a shower room on the ground floor at the rear of my house. The radial circuit to the shower is 10mm cable protected by a 40A MCB, due to the distance to the shower room from the CU.

I'm looking to take the shower unit out of the room and convert the room into a utility room, to house a washing machine and (electric) tumble drier.

I will use a qualified electrician to do the work, but just wanted to check a couple of things to see what might be involved:

Q1) The shower room current has a hand-basin and toilet, will it be acceptable under the regs to have low level power sockets in the same room? (I'm proposing to fit a work surface over the new appliances.)Yes,if the shower is coming out Do the sockets need to be a set distance away from the hand-basin/toilet?No,but common sense is required. Is an RCD going to be needed because the power will be in a 'wet' room?Yes,but not for that reason,if the shower is out it is no longer a special location but RCD protection is required for all socket outlets and buried cables less than 50mm deep.

Q2) As the CU won't take a RCD (it's too old to get one to fit), is the only option going to be to put an RCBO in a waterproof enclosure where the ceiling-mounted shower isolation switch is, and switch to 2.5mm cable on the load side of the RCBO? And are there any cheaper/better/other ways of achieving the same end?You could use the 10mm to feed a small CU and run your final circuits from that

Many thanks

Tony L.

Hope this helps.