electric cooker advice

ooter

i've just bought a seperate oven and hob electric cooker,a section needs to be cut out of the counter top for the hob to sit in and the cooker also needs to be wired up.i'd be fairly confident of cutting the counter top but would it be adviseable to get someone in to wire the cooker and if so how much would it cost?
would it be very difficult/unsafe to do it myself?

cheers

Mr Magnolia

It can be dangerous and unsafe if you're connections are wrong/executed incorrectly/not tight.

I would advise you get an electician in to do the work for you, it shouldn't really cost too much. Are the cooker and the hob being installed beside each other, the electrician will probably have to run a new cable if your old unit was an all-in-one.

byte

If you have to question yourself on whether you'd be fit to do the electrics yourself, it's best to just get a pro in to do the job for peace of mind.

2 stroke

Well put Byte. Possibly the best bit of advice I've seen on these boards.
Cost is irrevelent when it comes to life or death issues.
Recently I was working in a house where boyfriend was replacing cooker as above. By all accounts he was an excelent carpenter, but he was giving out that the hob and oven came without cables attached and he had already cut old cable from cooker. Girlfriend was in a flap because she needed cooker for sunday dinner and it was now saturday evening and wanted to twist wires together. I could have helped out by running back to my yard, but because they knew so little about electricty, my advice was to eat out until they could get an electrician.

Mr Magnolia

2 stroke wrote:

Girlfriend was in a flap because she needed cooker for sunday dinner and it was now saturday evening and wanted to twist wires together. I could have helped out by running back to my yard, but because they knew so little about electricty, my advice was to eat out until they could get an electrician.

Good advice this type of thing causes fires.

Stoner

ooter,

the problem with some hobs is that they have a lower current carrying capacity on their cables then a cooker has, so the MCB protecting the Cooker cable is rated too high for the hob.
So a common mistake is made where people link the hob and the cooker off the 32 Amp supply that feeds the cooker (note there are some cookers out ther that also have small flexes fed from them and once again a 32 Amp supply is too big)

A standard cooker has an MCB that is 32Amps

Most of these new hobs have cables that can't cary this amount of current, so it can be dangerous to hook them up to the cooker switch.
Idealy a 32 Amp cooker supply and a seperate 20 Amp supply for the hob is the way to go.

Stoner

ooter,

the problem with some hobs is that they have a lower current carrying capacity on their cables then a cooker has, so the MCB protecting the Cooker cable is rated too high for the hob.
So a common mistake is made where people link the hob and the cooker off the 32 Amp supply that feeds the cooker (note there are some cookers out ther that also have small flexes fed from them and once again a 32 Amp supply is too big)

A standard cooker has an MCB that is 32Amps

Most of these new hobs have cables that can't cary this amount of current, so it can be dangerous to hook them up to the cooker switch.
Idealy a 32 Amp cooker supply and a seperate 20 Amp supply for the hob is the way to go as indicated by Mr Magnolia

Alun

What if you were to able to replace the cable coming from the hob with one capable of carrying 32A? Surely then it would then be OK to feed both the hob and the oven off the same cooker feed?

Stoner

not a bad idea Alun, but there would be internal wiring in the hob that would not be able to handle an over current.

There guys save alot of money (copper) by down rating all the cables in these units.

ooter, check the hob, if its rated at 32 amps or higher along with your cooker then you can link them from the same supply, I should have highlighted that as the easy option.

Anyway Like the lads advised it should cost you about €50 to get someone to do it.

GreeBo

Stoner wrote:

ooter, check the hob, if its rated at 32 amps or higher along with your cooker then you can link them from the same supply, I should have highlighted that as the easy option.

If the hob is 32amps or greater then shouldnt it have its own supply and MCB?
At least to avoid nusiance tripping when you are using both?

Stoner wrote:

Anyway Like the lads advised it should cost you about €50 to get someone to do it.

If you need a new cable I would advise running it yourself and then getting a sparks to hook up both ends, running it is the time consuming/expensive part.

Alun

Could work out a lot more expensive than €50 if, like me, you have no spare slots in your CU for an additional MCB

eoghan.geraghty

To save running a new 20A supply for the hob, you can put the 32A supply through a 13A fused spur.
This will handle a 2kw hob, and won't overload the components of the hob either.

ooter

thanks for all the info lads.think i'll get someone in,sounds a bit too complicated for me.
does anyone know where i could find someone to wire the cooker and fit the hob in the counter top?
don't want to get 2 people in if i can avoid it