OT- Installing a electric cooker.
Done the wiring in my kit car but why then do I seemingly need a electrician to wire a new cooker in. The cooker socket is already on the wall and it
has the relevant live, neutral and earth cables. I don't see why I can't do this myself. Does anyone know why I cannot do this myself?
Because you are on the internet dithering instead of just connecting the three wires, it's just like putting a plug on a cable. Switch the power
off first if you are sensible.
I don't think there is anything in the regs that stops you wiring in a cooker if the cooker isolator is already there.
i.e you are just wiring from the cooker point to the cooker.
Need to make sure you spec the right cable though. You'll need min 6mm t&e.
The reason you shouldn't do it is that you may not know how to work out if the cable in the wall is rated for the cooker you are installing,
therefore you could burn your house down, invalidating your insurance and who knows what else.
in reality you may be fine but at least take the time to do the calculations to make sure if you are going to do it yourself.
I have seen cookers wired up with 2.5mm when they needed 4/6mm, at least they helped warm the house up
[Edited on 11/11/13 by YQUSTA]
Part P specifically states that installing a cooker is not notifable unless a new circuit is required. So if your just wiring to an existing 35/45amp outlet just ensure you have the correctly rated cable, ie 6 or 10mm.
I'll go out and buy a minimum of 6mm t&e. Probably 10mm just to be safe! House has not long been rewired to part P so should be okay.
Cheers guys
[Edited on 11/11/13 by Irony]
You need to make sure the wire already installed (from consumer unit to outlet) is of the correct size too, not just the one from wall to cooker.
I have seen installations that looked like any other but the wiring was woefully under spec. The cooker outlet had been installed for use with a gas
oven so the wiring only needed to support the ignitor, not the load from the oven. I'm not sure what the regs say on this but you would hope all
cooker outlets are required to support an electric oven, just in case.
Rich
quote:
Originally posted by Irony
I'll go out and buy a minimum of 6mm t&e. Probably 10mm just to be safe! House has not long been rewired to part P so should be okay.
Cheers guys
[Edited on 11/11/13 by Irony]
Remember 10mm is a pig if you need to feed it round a corner it's very thick and inflexible. Probably only needed if you are fitting a range cooker with multiple ovens.
It won't be a problem for you but I thought I'd share.
I used to live in Belgium where it was common to have 220V 3 phase supplies. I agreed to connect a friend's Bosch cooker.
Purely by chance, I checked the cooker supply to find that it was 415V 3-phase 
As it happened, the cooker had jumpers to operate on 415V so all was well, but it could have been an expensive mistake.
Ovens draw fairly modest amps, it's hobs that wallop the meter. Many ovens use a 13A fuse for good reason- they just don't pull the juice.
So 2.5mm would be fine.
Of course this is completely not true if there are electric hobs attached. Diversity accounts for so much but not that much 
An engineer that works for Baumatic gave me this tip -- check all the screws are tight in connector block at the cooker/hob/oven even
the ones you haven't touched.
Quite often when these come from the manufacturers with the screws that connect U links are slack this can cause voltage spikes due arcing that can
cause havoc with the electronics.
[Edited on 11/11/13 by britishtrident]
Don't use 10mm, you'll never connect it. Not needed unless it's like a 15kw all electric range.
we did one las week which required a 16mm.
Commercial I bet!
If it's a new cooker it will have installation instructions with it, this will tell you the wire it needs. The last three ovens I fitted have been generic European, a Bosch, Zanussi and an Indesit, they had 3 phase connectors with links for single phase fitted onto the terminal block.
fuse type,
fuse size,
reference method,
ambient temperature
grouping factor
brings back my college days!