C'Wood kitchen red switch, what's it for?

FirstIn

Folks,
What is this switch for? It's in my kitchen.

dr ro

Its the power switch to the oven and hob. If you flick it they won't work.

endacl

FirstIn wrote: »

Folks,
What is this switch for? It's in my kitchen.

It's the self destruct button for greystones. Don't touch it!

Charlie-Bravo

If you turn it off and your oven still works, then you have a problem!

JanneG

Just over 7 years living there and you only found it now?

d31b0y

What I am currently picturing...





Nice toaster by the way.

FirstIn

Well the oven works fine regardless of the switch. My guess is the throw it together attitude of the builders resulted in them not bothering to connect it.

JanneG

Well... Either you're really messing with your neighbours head and keep on turning their oven on and off or you have dodgy electric wiring and potentially a loose and live cable in your wall.

Either way, get a sparky in and get it checked... Unless you want to open the wall in your loo to check yourself??

Heroditas

FirstIn wrote: »

Well the oven works fine regardless of the switch. My guess is the throw it together attitude of the builders resulted in them not bothering to connect it.

Is it a gas oven?

mikedragon32

FirstIn wrote: »

Folks,
What is this switch for? It's in my kitchen.

Seven years in the house now aren't you?

You moved in just after us IIRC!

Charlie-Bravo

FirstIn wrote: »

Well the oven works fine regardless of the switch. My guess is the throw it together attitude of the builders resulted in them not bothering to connect it.

The light wouldn't be on without the power going to it...so definitely get a sparks in. There is a dedicate trip switch on the fuse board for the oven (or at least there should be). If the trip is switched to the off position, the light on oven isolation switch 'should' go off. Still best to get a sparks in.

FirstIn

Yes indeed 7 years. Doesn't time fly. I'm going to get it looked at in the next few days. I know it might seem odd that I didn't get it sorted earlier but as everything worked I didn't bother. I shall report back with the result, so stay tuned my lovelies!

pixbyjohn

Heroditas wrote: »

Is it a gas oven?

FirstIn wrote: »

Yes indeed 7 years. Doesn't time fly. I'm going to get it looked at in the next few days. I know it might seem odd that I didn't get it sorted earlier but as everything worked I didn't bother. I shall report back with the result, so stay tuned my lovelies!

Is your cooker electric ?

Charlie-Bravo

The standard developer spec was for an electric oven with a gas hob - it doesn't sound like anything changed over the last 7 years.

FirstIn

Yes indeed, gas hob and electric cooker.

dr ro

Does the electrical igniter button on the gas hob work when the red button is in the off position?

FirstIn

dr ro wrote: »

Does the electrical igniter button on the gas hob work when the red button is in the off position?

Yes it does. As far as I can make out everything works on the cooker when the red button is in the off position.

Huntthe

It's supposed to be for the cooker but the fuse has popped and your left with a switch with an LED that is constantly on.

pixbyjohn

Huntthe wrote: »

It's supposed to be for the cooker but the fuse has popped and your left with a switch with an LED that is constantly on.

how could that be ? fuse blown = no circuit to light LED ( but then again its not a LED, its a neon )

FirstIn

The red light is NOT constantly on. Only when the switch is in the ON position.

dr ro

it's pretty odd. The light on my button stays on regardless of whether switch is on or off. Even when hob and cooker are powerless!

pixbyjohn

dr ro wrote: »

it's pretty odd. The light on my button stays on regardless of whether switch is on or off. Even when hob and cooker are powerless!

The reason it is doing that is because the electrician has the "live in" connected to the "live out" on the switch and viceversa. So the live is feeding the neon light all the time but the switch still turns on and off the power to you appliance.

switch by pixbyjohn, on Flickr
Feed in is the live and neutral from the fuseboard and feed out is to the appliance.

psychward

nice toaster. I don't understand why anyone buys toasters which only toast 3/4 of the bread so you have to turn the toast around to get the bread browned which means one end slightly burns .

Charlie-Bravo

FirstIn wrote: »

The red light is NOT constantly on. Only when the switch is in the ON position.

pixbyjohn wrote: »

The reason it is doing that is because the electrician has the "live in" connected to the "live out" on the switch and viceversa. So the live is feeding the neon light all the time but the switch still turns on and off the power to you appliance...

Sorry Firstin/PixbyJohn, if I read the comments correctly, the neon is only ON when the switch is ON. Therefore, the live is connected correctly to the 'live in'. It wouldn't matter which way around the wiring is (as you describe John) - if the switch is off, there will be no power to the oven.

FirstIn says the oven is constantly powered on regardless of the switch being 'on' or 'off'.

So it leads me to believe, that the 'live in' is connected correctly (provided it's the wire run from the correct trip switch distribution board!). And perhaps, the wiring to the oven is spurred off the 'live in'.

Charlie-Bravo

dr ro wrote: »

it's pretty odd. The light on my button stays on regardless of whether switch is on or off. Even when hob and cooker are powerless!

Sorry John I see you are answering Ro's comment and not relevant to FirstIn's - dr ro, does your neon light get brighter when you switch the switch to the on position? Think I've seen this somewhere before...will have to come back to you on that one.

youknowwho

I can only speak for the Duplexes, but there should be two red switches in the kitchen, or at least somewhere downstairs!

One for the oven / hob, and one for the central heating boiler. Even if you have a gas boiler which most in Charlesland are, they need electricity for the timer and initial spark.

Try turning it off and then turning on the boiler. If it still works well then god only knows what its connected to.

FirstIn

Right. I did some tests.
There is a dedicated trip switch for the oven in the fuse box. Turning this off does NOT turn the oven off. It does turn the light on the red switch off.
I then checked the kitchen socket trip in the fuse box and flipping this to the off position does turn off the oven.
So the oven is wired through the kitchen sockets.

Charlie-Bravo

I'm not an electrician, but that's not good at all - I seriously recommend getting that sorted asap. It's a substantial fire risk.

Has your kitchen sockets ever tripped the trip-switch? Imagine the load on the Kitchen ring main with a fridge, freezer, dish washer (if you have one), cooker hood, kettle, toaster (and it's a double toaster), microwave, etc. - all on a 32amp trip!?!

pixbyjohn

Thanks for the feedback. No need to tell you there is something wrong in your wiring arrangement.