Hardwiring an electric cooker

dander

I'm planning on buying a new cooker which requires hard-wiring and I intend to pay for the installation service with the company I buy from, so I want to make sure that there won't be any problems. The current cooker is hardwired in and there's a cable running from the back of the cooker and disappearing behind the tiles and going to a proper cooker socket. My question is, what exactly does hardwiring a cooker in involve - would the installers need to run a new cable all the way to the socket and potentially have to destroy the tiles to get to the socket, or can the existing cable be disconnected from the current cooker and reconnected to a new one? Many thanks.

neilmcl

If the existing cabling is sufficient then they'll just reuse it.

dander

Thank you - that's a relief! 

TELLIT01

Just make sure that the company knows that the existing cable is to be reused.  What you don't want is for them to cut the existing cable and leave it too short to reuse.

nofoollikeold

1. If the kW rating of the new cooker is less then or equal to that of the old, logic suggests the old cable will be adequate.
2. Difficulties could arise if the old cable is not long enough to connect to the new cooker.  I don't think joining such large cables is allowed, or, if allowed, would probably require some form of "box" protection.
3. My preference would be to get an electrician, who knows what he / she is doing to fit the new cooker.  I would doubt the qualifications of the supplier's installers to do anything but very basic connection.

Sandtree

Depending on how cautious you are you may want to do some checks beforehand. Installation services normally just means attaching the wire to an existing switched spur. If there are any problems with the amps of the breaker in the consumer unit/fuse box or something doesnt meet current standards etc they dont normally fix anything like that under a standard install service.

If alls ok its a 2 minute job that anyone could do were it not for the legal requirements.

With our new items the cooker had a socket at its end with a moulded plug and then bare wires at the end for the switch. I assume if  getting a cable to the switch is hard they could just use a junction box to attach the new cable to the existing one. 

fenwick458

really the answers you seek should be in the t&c's of the company doing the job. but I doubt it.
I have been called to many jobs where the customer has paid for a shop (currys/AO or whatever) to install for them. but the delivery team always seem to find some excuse not to fit it, just drop it off and leave it and claim that it doesn't meet the regulations and it needs a qualified electrician to rectify it.
this is because the "fitters" are just delivery drivers who have been shown a 1 hour instructional video on how to connect the most basic cooking appliance in the most common scenario, and given a few basic tools
I do often wonder if the shop refund the installation charge when they say they they can't do it??

grumbler

I'll be very surprised if the "installers" agree to connect the existing cable to the new cooker.

Ectophile

grumbler said:

I'll be very surprised if the "installers" agree to connect the existing cable to the new cooker.

Why?

I would expect them to check that it is suitable, and wired correctly.  But I can't see any reason for a simple refusal to connect it.

George_Michael

Ectophile said:

grumbler said:

I'll be very surprised if the "installers" agree to connect the existing cable to the new cooker.

Why?

I would expect them to check that it is suitable, and wired correctly.  But I can't see any reason for a simple refusal to connect it.

It probably depends on how the cooker is supplied and what their mandate allows them to do.

The last electric cooker that I purchased (Zanussi), came with about one and a half metres of cable coming out of the back and this needed to be connected to the cooker switch point.
If the oven the OP gets comes like this then the only way that the installers could connect the existing cable to the new oven will be to remove the access cover at the back, take out the cable that is there and wire in the existing cable, something that they may not want to do.
If however there is no new cable on the oven and all the installers have to do is to terminate the existing wires, they shouldn't have a problem with this.

fenwick458

Ectophile said:

grumbler said:

I'll be very surprised if the "installers" agree to connect the existing cable to the new cooker.

Why?

I would expect them to check that it is suitable, and wired correctly.  But I can't see any reason for a simple refusal to connect it.

because it if isn't exactly as they have been shown in their brief training video, then they don't do it.
an example of such, I have seen them not connect a single oven up because the supply cable wasn't "big enough". the kitchen actually had 3 circuits supplying 2 ovens (2 x 16A circuits wired in 2.5mm for each oven, and a 32A circuit in 4mm for the hob) 
it's actually fine, the current carrying capacity of the cable is well above the MCB rating, and it was a single oven that was only 3kw, well under the 16A.
but, according to "team knowhow" all cookers should be wired in 6mm minimum, so they didn't do it