Why so many spurs? (Electrics)

stebiz

Daughter has bought a house - only 25 years old - electrics seem 'okay' but fuse board is small and lots of spares that look unsightly. Why are they added? Is a bigger fuse board required.

Thanks for any help.

nofoollikeold

Spare whats? Picture would help.

stebiz

About 5 of these and a lot of conduit -(pic not daughters house)

Alanp

Do you mean spurs?

stebiz

Yes....................

FaceHead

It's a lazy way of adding multiple sockets. Conduit is also another lazy solution rather than chasing the walls. 

Speculating, I'd suggest the house was owned by a cheap landlord you who wanted to add sockets to a ring main in the cheapest possible way. 

It would be possible to wire the sockets into the ring main, rather than spurring them off it and avoiding the fused spur, and to chase the walls to avoid conduit, however that would involve lifting flooring, a lot of dust and then filling and decorating over. 

danrv

stebiz said:

About 5 of these and a lot of conduit 

So cables aren’t chased into walls?

stebiz

FaceHead said:

It's a lazy way of adding multiple sockets. Conduit is also another lazy solution rather than chasing the walls. 

Speculating, I'd suggest the house was owned by a cheap landlord you wanted to add sockets to a ring main in the cheapest possible way. 

It would be possible to wire the sockets into the ring main, rather than spurring them off it and avoiding the fused spur, and to chase the walls to avoid conduit, however that would involve lifting flooring, a lot of dust and then filling and decorating over. 

Thankyou. That was my uneducated guess. All floors are coming up and I'll get her to get an electrician to do it properly. Thanks again.

stebiz

danrv said:

stebiz said:

About 5 of these and a lot of conduit 

So cables aren’t chased into walls?

No mate. Just up the corners and along skirting.

danrv

I need to fit E7 wiring soon for storage heaters. Might be able to get away with trunking as the runs aren’t that long.

onomatopoeia99

Until a few years ago extending a ring was "notifiable work" so needed either an electrician that could self certify or paying LABC (over £400 round my way).  Adding fused spurs was not notifiable so could be done by a competent DIYer.  The wiring regs were subsequently changed to allow extending a ring as non-notifiable work.

This may be why there are many spurs.  It is why when I renovated my bedroom the extra sockets I added are on fused spurs, but when I needed extra sockets elsewhere a few years later I extended the ring (to BS7671 requirements - I live here so I don't want the place burning down with me inside, thank you very much).