Remove Electric Cooker

bonkers12

Hi , Im clearing out my mother in laws flat as she has moved into a care home, i need to disconnect and dump an old electric cooker , There is an old style Mk socket on/off switch on the wall with a thick power cable leading to a box on the back of the cooker once i have ensured all the power is switched off would it be acceptable to disconnect the wiring from the box on the back of the cooker and isolate the wire with a terminal block rather than disconnect the wire from the wall on/off wall socket and have to pull the heavy power cable through . Any suggestions would be much appreciated thank you .

Risteard

No. That would be considered unsafe.

amanita

In every house I've moved into, the wires have just been left dangling, not even isolated. If you turn it off at the wall and then the fuse box (it'll have a separate breaker) that's good enough.


If you remove the whole cable the new owner is going to curse you a *lot*.

bonkers12

Thanks for your reply risteard.
Thanks amanita, i thought the same really as regards to removing the whole cable,not too sure if the next person moving in will appreciate it being removed . thanks again

casper_g

amanita wrote: »

In every house I've moved into, the wires have just been left dangling, not even isolated. If you turn it off at the wall and then the fuse box (it'll have a separate breaker) that's good enough.

Just because a lot of people do something doesn't make it right. Leaving a bare cable sticking out of the wall and relying on the fact that it's turned off at the consumer unit and at the wall is dangerous and you shouldn't do it. If a trip switch activates someone is fairly likely to just open the consumer unit and turn everything back on without thinking, then you've an accident waiting to happen.

For the record, in every house I've ever moved into there's been an oven or cooker on the end of the cable! If you must remove the cooker, you need to remove the cable at the connection point on the wall. It isn't a big job for someone installing the new cooker to reconnect it there. It should just be three screw terminals to connect the wires to.

bonkers12

Thanks casper-g you have made my mind up i will remove the whole wire or get a sparky in to do it for me . thanks

Owain_Moneysaver

You can remove the live and neutral cooker wires from the 'load' terminals inside the cooker switch and tape them up. You don't have to pull the whole heavy cable out of the wall.

Also turn off and tape over the relevant circuit breaker.

Or put one of these over the cooker end of the wire. As well as terminals, it has a cable strain relief and a fixed cover so will make the exposed ends safe.

bonkers12

Thanks for your reply owain , your advice is much appreciated.

EachPenny

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

You can remove the live and neutral cooker wires from the 'load' terminals inside the cooker switch and tape them up. You don't have to pull the whole heavy cable out of the wall.

If you do this though, make sure you securely attach a note to the switch or cable to explain what you've done so the next person is not baffled as to why they've connected the cooker and switched everything on, but it still isn't working.

FreeBear

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Or put one of these over the cooker end of the wire. As well as terminals, it has a cable strain relief and a fixed cover so will make the exposed ends safe.

If the cable has been clipped to the wall, capped, and then plastered over, pulling it out is just going to make loads of mess. A suitably rated terminal box would be my preferred option. Also available from Screwfix ( https://www.screwfix.com/p/mk-45a-cooker-connection-unit-white/16686 ) and other outlets.