Radial vs ring wiring

[feeling_zen]

@khan84

Electricians find it difficult to believe that the breaker rating even makes a difference. They seem to be under the impression that as long as it meets standards there will be no difference.

That’s the best type. A skeptic that will at least do what you ask.

I had an audiophile electrician. No end of trouble. Had to keep reigning them in. Put the build back a couple months due to their “initiative”.

[james_n]

It’s very easy to over think these things. IIRC, you are London based, so it might be worth contacting a dealer like Grahams who should be able to recommend ‘hi-fi friendly’ electricians. At the end of the day, the electrician needs to understand your requirements and meet the latest regs for the installation, as they will need to sign it off.

Plenty of threads on the forum on dedicated mains so worth a good read through.

Good luck though – it’s well worth doing.

[khan84]

Trouble is their problem solving only factors in standard practice. For instance I’ve asked for a thicker cable in my install to improve on the resistance and their response is to run a very long length cable all the way outside my house then back in again, which will somewhat defeat the purpose of the whole install.

I now have to figure out the cable routing all my by myself. I think I’ve got it figured out though.

I will have to consult the electrician on how to wire my existing socket. If it all becomes too much I’ll leave everything as it is. I can’t be too greedy now as the 20A C breaker has made a huge difference and my tripping problem is no more.

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

Not sure you need to do this. A suitable option is to use a Split Load Link bus bar setup kit… this splits a single consumer bus bar unit into two consumer unit bus bars… you get a degree of bus bar isolation with a single CU box as you would with two CUs. Again an electrician will be able to do this for you.
Would appear an option if you are unable or prefer not to split the tails…

But I still maintain any improvement here is dwarfed compared to converting to a TT earthing system. For hifi it really is a no brainer as far as I am concerned… and is popular with recording studios too so I have been told. Without it your neutral and earth is going to be equally noisy… no matter what you do with the consumer units.

[Mike_S]

@Simon-in-Suffolk

A TT system will decouple Neutral mains noise from the Earth… which I just can’t stress how important that is in improving hifi … far more so than seperate radials etc in my experience.

This is really interesting and I hadn’t come cross it before. In New Zealand our earthing system is described as:

‘Currently, NZ uses the MEN earthing system (as does Australia), being similar to the PME earthing system used in the UK but with an earth electrode being required in each electrical installation to assist in keeping the voltage to earth of the neutral conductor of the LV reticulation close to zero. Otherwise the MEN system is TN-C-S and relies on the PEN conductor as a return path to clear earth faults by the operation of OCPDs. The use of RCDs is now required for most sub-circuits to provide additional shock protection. ‘

So, I’m guessing that having earth electrodes, we already have a advantage hi-fi rise. I know when we installed solar a few years ago, we had to test the earthing rod, which just required a bit of a clean up to pass.

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

MEN earthing is pretty similar to the PME - the key bit that are the same is that the earth and neutral is jointly combined at the substation of other shared distribution point. This is the cause of potential noise on the mains, specifically the mains earth from neighbouring consumers.

In the UK PME installations have bonded earth connections to water pipes etc, this is similar to the MEN electrode - this is not the same as TT.

The reason why I understand Australia prefer the MEN system is because they can’t rely on the conductivity of earth because of limited moisture content in the soil in much of Australia. I would have thought there is more moisture in NZ - but perhaps there is benefit in having a common preferred implementation standard with New Zealand and Australia?

TT provides one or more dedicated earths at the installation with a low impedance electrode(s) earth - this impedance has to confirm to specific conductivity levels for it to be complaint. The earth is not shared with neighbouring consumers and is separated from the Neutral, hence why it can be helpful for low earth or ground noise, and as such is popular for low noise applications like recording studios and sensitive radio setups. (its also used for types of outbuildings for safety reasons). This earth is separate to the relatively high or uncontrolled impedance of the MEN electrode or PME earth bonding to pipes etc

[Cohen1263]

I would like to keep this thread open. Hence this post.

[Debs]

Earthing systems, EV charging connection options and open PEN detection devices.