'cos he's got no spare ways?
In the scenario I suggested it was a large number of circuits and there were a couple of spare ways for possible future use.
The original idea was to run that one ring to cover a number of sockets in that area. Other rings for other areas.
However he geography of the house regarding cable runs for that one particular ring made the ring shape bring the near mid point of the ring close two the consumer unit location, therefore either one ring or two rings on one circuit would same the same purpose and almost equal cable used whichever alternative was decided upon.
So, the defining decision was do we keep two spare ways as originally intended or use one of them to create two circuits instead of the intended one circuit. The two ring one circuit alternative would reduce volt drop (not that volt drop was any particular problem even if it was one ring one circuit as per original intention anyway).
So I threw the question out on a forum to see what responses might be.
It was interesting to see that one contributor was absolutely adamant that two rings must be two circuits not one and he would correct this situation if he ever saw it by joining one end of each ring together to create one larger ring from two smaller rings on the same circuit.
I must admit that if I had seen (or heard of) such a ring topology my initial reactionwould be "Why?" then study it for a moment or two, test both rings as appropriate (metered tests on each ring separately and take note of which sockets were supplied by which ring), calculate ring length under both conditions.
Then all other things being equal and everything complying the decision would rest on one thing really, do we need one spare way or two as our preference?
With all jobs and installations and cars and roads and where we live we all consider the many implications of cost, ease of use, relative safety and usually most folk reach relative compromise of two or more issues to arrive at our final decision.
The very wealthy of us might well consider things rather differently though.
Many electricians study the On Site Guide as a kind of Bible in effect but we must remember that it is a guide only, there are other ways of achieving compliance with regs if we gave sufficient knowledge, skill and experience to make other alternatives.
Just because we decide to do something that is not exactly as described in the on site guide does not automatically mean that what we are doing is against the regs for that reason alone. So long as we use the regs as our minimum standard to achieve things then there is nothing wrong with ideas that might not be mainstream.
Does anyone here have an opinion of converting the two ring one circuit to one ring only and if so then what is your reason?
