Call out to sockets not working.

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M107

Billy-the-Kid
Joined
Feb 18, 2008
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Location
Berkshire
I changed the cu 5-6 years ago & wired the extension. The garage has 2x sockets on a radial circuit & 20amp mcb.

I get a call today;

"can you take a look, the last electrician couldnt suss out what you've done, but said there isnt an earth as the mcb has not tripped. He thinks there has been an overload in a junction box some where, as a precaution he has pulled the circuit tails from the breaker to isolate the circuit & this has also turned off the sockets upstairs"

I get there take a look at the board no sign of the circuit schedule/certs I left 5-6 years ago (laminated & pinned to wall)... I get my copies from the van & ...... oh look a new shower circuit.... the old circuits have been shuffled down & relabeled .

Cover off look at my schedule & yes the garage is a radial on the schedule, but on the cu is now labelled as upstairs sockets on a ringmain & the upstairs sockets were labelled as garage sockets. find the circuit continuity across the 20amp radial mcb, set mcb to on & ....oh look O/C

The other bloke was nearly there in his fault finding, he did have one socket front off in the garage, unfortunately he didnt undo both, if he'd undone the second one he would have seen it was a radial circuit. If he'd undertaken continuity test between upstairs & garage sockets He would have found they were seperate circuits.

Instead he isolated the wrong circuit because of a non existant faulty O/C in a junction box.

If he'd bothered to do end to end on the upstairs ring main (as I did after replacing the radial mcb) he'd have found a healthy circuit with r1 & rn ov 0.42 ohm & r2 of 0.70 ohm , so no O/C on the ringmain.

Him and a mate took an hour or so with no luck.....me six years later on my own took about as long as it takes to drink a brew while swapping the mcb & issuing a MWC.

Another Wylex by the wayheadbang

So come on who was it ...... any of you lot? :|

Badge no ....I said no ....NO.....you are a serial confessionist so a will not belive it was you.

 
You'd have thought the 20amp mcb would have given the other electrician a slight hint that it might have been an original radial cct with another one added at a later date into the same MCB.

Sometimes the clue to the problem is right before your eyes!

 
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