Taking out old Kitchen help!

dtailor1074

I require some advice from you good people.

To cut a long story short, we are having new units for out kitchen delivered soon so I've started taken apart the existing kitchen. Only after these had been removed would I have called an electrician to check existing wiring was all in place.

However, I had assumed all appliance sockets would have been on the walls hence thought ripping out the existing units would have been fairly straight forward however after having had a look it looks like we have about 4-5 sockets actually attached to the insides of the existing kitchen units. Why would sockets have been attached to units? Is this normal or was it because previous owners may have fitted in units before the electrics were in place? Is the next step to simply get an electrician to come and remove them, I take it as this is electrical work within the kitchen I wouldn't be able to remove these myself?

Thanks in advance.

D.

latecomer

Sounds very unusual. Are the sockets actually inside cupboards? Are they live? try plugging a lamp in to test them.

Normally sockets are wall mounted and not attached to units in any way.

dtailor1074

Hi latecomer,

They're definitely live because the existing working appliances are plugged into them.
One was for the built in microwave, on another unit its a double socket, one for the oven and one for the gas hob, then the other unit under the sink has another single socket for the washing machine.

latecomer

I would have thought have a socket under the sink wouldn't be allowed due to the obvious danger.

can you not dismantle the units and just leave the back panels with sockets attached to the wall? That way you could get out most of the kitchen and the rest can be dealt with once you get an electrician in.

dtailor1074

latecomer thanks for the reply, they are actually not attached to the back panels but are on the thick side panels, i think also that these units were rigid so its actually very hard to dismantle any of the units with the sockets still in place.

latecomer

Are the side panels against walls?

Anyway its sounding like it might be best to get an electrician in to make the electrics safe so you can get the kitchen out.

robv_3

It's done to try and reduce a large number of sockets/switches being visible above the units.

dtailor1074

latecomer - sounds like a wise idea

robv - thanks for comments,

Is there any reason why sockets could not be mounted on the wall but lower so they weren't visable? Reason for the question is when i get it redone would it be better for a sparky to refit the sockets to the walls (which can be accessed through a whole in the back panels). This existing setup looks quite dodgy.

Canucklehead

Hi

It is recommended that sockets (or any electrical outlet) are NOT fitted to units as they are deemed not to be part of the permanent building structure.
As with a lot of guidance the word 'recommended' as opposed to 'must' gives anyone the leeway to do what the hell they like. .
If you are not happy working on electrics then get someone in.Otherwise isolate @ fuseboard , test it's dead, take apart and temporarily fix to the wall until you get them rearranged for the new kitchen.

Corgi Guy.

dtailor1074

Canucklehead - thanks for that, explains why they've done it, seems like it was down to convenience. I'll get someone in to take care of it, its a pain but hopefully isn't too big an issue.

Thanks to all those that responded to this thread.

frankie

Canucklehead wrote: »

Hi

It is recommended that sockets (or any electrical outlet) are NOT fitted to units as they are deemed not to be part of the permanent building structure.

How can this apply say to an island unit with sockets in it?

I'd be interested to hear a 'professional' view on this as I want to place a larder fridge under the end of a peninsula and the fitter said he would need to ensure that there was an isolating switch/supply within reach of the fridge power cord, so he'd put a switched socket in the adjacent unit???

Apparently your not 'supposed' to cut the fridge supply cable if it has a moulded plug as this would invalidate any warranty.