How safe is this

Firebird

Don't know anything about this but would welcome any sparky's input.
Moved in some months ago - kitchen scares me.
It has 15, 40watt spotlights and a cooker hood, which all seem to be connected to the lightswitch. (there seems to be two separate switches for them on the main unit - half the spotlights and cooker hood on one trip switch and the other lights on another)
There is no cooker point and the cooker is a dual fuel 5 gas ring - 3000w electric oven which seems to plugin at the back of the cooker.
Just as an added extra (reckon they must have had something going with fuel supplier ) outside back light - 500watt bulb - can see into the next town.
How safe is this not?

Ectophile

I'd be pretty scared of the bill if you've got 600W of lighting in one kitchen!

In terms of current draw, it's well under the 5A that most light switches are rated at.

Unless you have a 2-gang switch, I'm rather confused about how you can have two circuits from the consumer unit connected to one switch:huh:.

Most single ovens are rated just within the limits of a 13A plug, so it's not unusual for them to be plugged into a normal socket. That's no problem if the ring as a whole isn't overloaded.

I'm not sure why people need ridiculously rated security lamps in domestic situations. My security light's bulb blew recently. I replaced the old 200W bulb with a 120W one, and it's still plenty bright enough.

Owain_Moneysaver

A 5 amp lightswitch will carry about 1200 watts but switching 15 mains bulbs on simultaneously is going to have a high inrush current.

Hopefully the lamps are split over 2 switches and 2 circuits in the consumer unit?

A single electric oven of 3000 watts can be plugged into an ordinary 13 amp socket - provided the socket is accessible so the oven can be isolated.

However with 600 watts of spots in the kitchen and 400 watts outside your lecky bills will be astonomical. Spotlamps are not suitable for general lighting and a 400 w outside lamp is gross overkill and likely to cause light pollution.

screwedagain

Are any of your circuit breakers tripping regularly with all of the lights etc. on?

Difficult to comment for sure on the 'safety' of the installation without seeing it but although you have a big lighting load, domestic lighting circuits are usually on a 6 amp fuse or breaker, which is good for about 1400W. It sounds like from your description that you have at least 2 lighting circuits coming from your consumer unit so you should be ok. If all of those kitchen lights, the cooker hood, your outside light plus the rest of the lights in the house are all on the one circuit, then you may be pushing it, in the unlikely case of you having all of the lights on at the same time.

The 3000W cooker equates to 13A i.e. a standard 3-pin plug, so wouldn't imagine there being an issue with this.

Firebird

Thanks for your replies. We have taken some of the bulbs out of the spotlights and replaced the others now, with 7 watt (was getting a draught from the wheel on the meter lol)
Strangely enough, I discovered the outside light had blown, so will replace the bulb with a lower wattage - although we didn't use it much.
There seems to be two circuits one for some of the spotlights and outside light and the other for the remainder of spotlights and cooker hood(if you cook in daylight, you need the lights on to run the fan).
There is a light switch at both ends of the kitchen, with the back door one having two switches - one for the outside light.