Kitchen & Bathroom Electricsin Worcester

Bathrooms: the zones decide everything

A room containing a bath or a shower is divided into zones and the zone decides what may be installed. Zone 0 is inside the bath or the shower basin itself, needs IPX7 protection, and takes nothing but extra-low voltage. Zone 1 is directly above it to two and a quarter metres from the floor and needs IPX4, or better where a jet is used for cleaning. Zone 2 extends six hundred millimetres beyond zone 1 and also needs IPX4. Beyond the zones there is no specific IP requirement, but every circuit in the room needs 30mA RCD protection regardless.

Socket outlets are the rule people break. Ordinary sockets must not go within two and a half metres horizontally of the zone 1 boundary, which in most domestic bathrooms rules the room out entirely. A shaver supply unit to the right standard is the exception, and it is why they exist. If somebody offers you a normal socket in a bathroom because your electric toothbrush needs one, that is the conversation to stop.

Supplementary bonding is the one that saves money when it is assessed properly. The wiring regulations allow it to be omitted where every final circuit in the location has 30mA RCD protection, all extraneous conductive parts are connected back to the main earthing terminal by main bonding, and the installation is in good order. In a house with a modern board that is usually satisfied, and the alternative is lifting a bathroom floor to run bonding conductors. It has to be verified rather than assumed, and that verification is a test, not an opinion.

Kitchens are a different problem: load and layout. The cooker gets its own circuit sized with diversity applied, because a cooker rated at forty-odd amps never draws it all at once. Built-under appliances get a switched fused connection above the worktop, so a leaking dishwasher can be isolated without pulling the units out. And one piece of paperwork worth knowing: in England a bathroom is a special location and electrical work in one is notifiable, whereas kitchens stopped being notifiable in their own right in 2013. A new circuit is still notifiable wherever it is. In Wales the older rules still catch kitchens, which matters if you own property across the border.

What this work includes

Designed before the tiler and the fitter arrive, not after.

• Bathroom zones set out on site, with the IP rating for each fitting
• Supplementary bonding tested and verified, not assumed either way
• 30mA RCD protection on every circuit in the location
• Cooker circuit sized with diversity, not by the badge rating
• Appliance isolation above the worktop, reachable without moving units
• Extractor fans with the correct isolation and overrun supply
• Under-cabinet and plinth lighting run before the units go in
• Notified to Building Control where the work requires it

How a kitchen or bathroom job runs

Before the fitter

Positions agreed against the actual unit and sanitaryware layout, on the wall, in pencil.

First fix

Cables run and boxes set while the walls are open and before anything is tiled.

Second fix

Accessories and fittings on once the units and tiling are in, to the zones agreed.

Test and certify

Tested, the certificate issued, and notified where the work requires it.

Kitchen and bathroom work across Worcester and Worcestershire

Refits across Worcester, Droitwich Spa, Malvern, Pershore, Evesham and Stratford-upon-Avon. If the board is old, a new cooker circuit often needs a board upgrade first because there is nowhere to take a protected circuit from. A hob or cooker on its own is a cooker connection, and if the whole house is being done at once it is far cheaper to fold this into a rewire than to bolt it on afterwards.

Kitchen lighting: under-cabinet, downlights and the switching

Kitchen lighting is three jobs, and doing them as one is why so many kitchens end up bright and unpleasant. Task light goes under the wall units, over the worktop where you are actually cutting, and it wants to be a continuous strip or a run of spots rather than one fitting in the middle of the room throwing your own shadow onto the board. Ceiling light is general fill, and in a kitchen it is usually downlights, which have to be fire rated where there is a room above and rated for insulation cover if there is loft over them. The third is anything over an island or a table, which is decorative and wants its own switch. The part people regret skipping is the switching: task, ceiling and feature on one switch means you get all of it or none of it, and a kitchen used at seven in the morning and again at nine at night wants at least two. Dimming is worth deciding before we run the cable rather than after, because a dimmable circuit and a dimmable fitting are two separate choices and both have to be right.