2 phases in one room

[Labarum]

I am just having a new kitchen fitted in house in Cyprus where the regulations will be very similar to UK.

I now have a cooker point with 13A socket) installed a few inches from a 13A socket on the ring main. If the consumer unit is correctly marked the ring main and the cooker are on different phases which means I have immediately adjacent 13A sockets with ~400v between them. Is this permitted? Doesn't look like a good idea, but then I was trained in electronics not electrical installation.

Yes, the house has a 3 phase supply to cope with the air conditioning! It's common here, which is why Nicosia enjoys power cuts in August!

What do the UK regs say? I thought it was one phase per floor or at least per room. This house is a bungalow!

 

[Dr.EM]

Over here in the UK it seems that each house takes 1 phase with the 3 phases distributed between properties on the street. There used to be an issue with our local distribution transformer which resulted in our phase dropping, along with 1/3rd of the houses on our street.

I doubt what you describe would be permitted in the UK honestly.

 

[JohnnyG]

Larger domestic premises over here do have 3 phase supplies, it's not uncommon.
I'm not aware of a regulation concerning a phase per floor as that wouldn't neccessarily be the best way to even the load, you could have all your big appliances on the ground floor and just sockets & lights on the top floor for instance.
Over here, if you had 2 fixed live parts that close together on different phases offering the potential of 400v it would have to have a warning label affixed but that's about it afaik
If the cooker is only powered from a 13a plug why isn't it just spurred off of the ring or added to it anyway?

 

[gary996]

Its not advisable to have different phases that close together. In a commercial/industrial application where sockets/switches are in close proximity then they have to be clearly labelled of the potential of 400volts

 

[MeEsH BaKkA]

It would be against bs7671 rules in England to have 2 seperate phases in close proximity in a domestic dwelling unless clearly marked. As it has been said earlier there is a potential of 400v between your cooker and appliance fed by the socket on another phase.
I reccomend you get a qualified local electrician to check it out for you and advise you on the countrys regulations.

IMO you don't have a 3phase board but new EU regs require new cosumer units to be split load with usualy 2 RCDs. You may find the sockets in your kitchen may be on one RCD and the cooker is on another RCD.

 

[Labarum]

If the cooker is only powered from a 13a plug why isn't it just spurred off of the ring or added to it anyway?

No. No. No. The cooker (oven and hob) need 32A and have a separate feed back to the consumer unit to a 32A breaker. The cooker control unit in the kichen has - as is common - a 13A socket in it. The adjacent 13A socket is on a ring main, and that loop is on a different phase - so 400v between them.

 

[JohnnyG]

Ok, in that case it sounds like good practice to stick the cooker on a separate phase as it might overload the one the rest of the kitchen is on

 

[Labarum]

IMO you don't have a 3phase board but new EU regs require new cosumer units to be split load with usualy 2 RCDs. You may find the sockets in your kitchen may be on one RCD and the cooker is on another RCD.

Believe me. I have a three phase supply to the house via four overhead cables. Red Yellow and Blue run from the meters into the consumer unit, and the trips are labelled.

R1 Y1 B1 R2 Y2 B2 etc

In addition there is an off peak meter for night storage radiators also distributed by phase. I dare not add up to total load!

My Father-in-Law had it installed years ago, and he is an electrical engineer. I have now raised him in the phone. The electrician who re-wired the kitchen will be getting a piece of my mind.

We had a gas cooker before . . .