The extra electrical circuit definitely makes sense, as it "decouples" the office from the house. An additional RCD (FI) makes no sense. Generally, one RCD per house is sufficient for personal protection, as it will trigger in any case. Nevertheless, two are usually installed with the background that if one actually trips, at least half the house still has power.
Why the RCD would lead to a larger subdistribution is also unclear to me. Usually, a subdistribution is designed with 20% installation reserve (precisely for these reasons). If adding a circuit disrupts the entire concept, it was already a planning error!
Thanks, that helps me. That was more or less my impression too, or I was skeptical that an office should trigger it. But I'm not sure.
I also sent it to the general contractor to clarify. We have an air-water heat pump with ventilation system and photovoltaics also commissioned through the general contractor. Of course, these also take up space in the distribution box. But these items were included in the installation, so “complete” in the offer.
Now our office comes with 8-10 more sockets, and in the house, we have a few distributed – each bedroom +1, in the living area +2, and in the kitchen +4. Our sockets together with photovoltaics and the air-water heat pump can probably already cause a larger distribution board to be needed. The question now is of course whose problem that is. If the distribution for the offer from the general contractor "just barely" would have been enough, and then we have to pay a surcharge of not 500 but 1000€ for 15 sockets, then that doesn't feel quite fair. We did not pay too small surcharges for the air-water heat pump and photovoltaics. But this is currently under clarification with the general contractor, so they have not just said "that's your problem." Let's wait and see.
I deliberately added a wink.
Just wanted to point out that with near certainty, you will have spent more money on your computers in the foreseeable future.
Those 500€ will eventually disappear in the noise.
Our motto for house electrics is: better too much than too little. One of the things that can only be changed later at great expense.
Yes, better safe than sorry is of course a good motto when you consider what an expansion presumably costs afterwards.
To me, that already sounds like "making extra business". A separate fuse is one thing, but an additional RCD, i.e., a third one, has absolutely no advantages as far as I understand. However, if the control cabinet is so tight that this one office already pushes it to capacity limits, I would also want a bigger one here; who knows what might be retrofitted later, some reserves don't hurt. But as said above... how should that little bit more explode the control cabinet with proper planning... that was planned wrong from the start, or the electrician is simply trying to make a bit more money now.
Thank you. Yes, my husband also wants an electric car someday, so it would be good to have space for that. Regarding the original planning, see above. I assume or hope that the topic of the distribution board simply slipped by the general contractor.
The electrician also charged us for the second RCD (which now has to be installed according to regulations). But the general contractor said that the electrical installation is done according to regulations and if it is required by regulations, then we do not need to pay separately for it (they are sorting that out among themselves).
Our first point of contact was, of course, the inquiry with the electrician. Some things were explained to us well and in detail, e.g., why the CAT cables have to go inside the wall without conduit. Some things could not really be explained, e.g., why we should have a patch panel and switch installed by them for a 600€ surcharge because otherwise you “could not measure through the CAT cables.” On inquiry, the only answer was that it’s a lot of labor time (lol?), and that we could also do it ourselves if we wanted.
Regarding the office / extra circuit / RCD, we received this answer:
“if you reduce the sockets by 15 and the office does not get an extra supply line and also no own RCD, which unfortunately is necessary for the PCs, then the larger distribution can be eliminated.
However, please do not use multiple socket adapters there. That would lead to a great fire risk.”
I still don’t quite know what to make of that. I’ve used multiple socket adapters all my life and have never seen one catch fire.