Hi just wondered if anyone had come across a certain fault I encountered today ? was asked to have a quick look today then will have to go back next week to have a look at it. There are two sockets not working in the kitchen, only two, the rest are working fine. There is a dedicated circuit for kitchen sockets. Putting my plug in socket tester in the two faulty sockets it highlights missing neutral. Putting voltage test probes on l-n reads no voltage, and as soon as I put the tester on l-e it trips the rcd. Just wondered if anyone had any insight ? Thank you

Ring continuity, broken in 2 desperate places

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Dougie
Power Plus Electrical.co.uk

My mission is to live as long as possible......so far so good!

seems strange as the property looks like its been re wired quite recently

New or some chrome sockets installed by homeowner, do some simply testing and a hour of your time and I'm sure you will have it sorted in no time

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Dougie
Power Plus Electrical.co.uk

My mission is to live as long as possible......so far so good!

were they working after the rewire ? - might also be worth looking for a spur off a ring to these two sockets.

regards

OMS

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Failure is always an option

Maybe it's not even a ring?!

new sockets how would produce the fault ? I havent tested ring main continuity yet but it appears to be a ring or meant to be a ring. Tripping rcd off voltage probes ?

why do you think the sockets have produced the fault ? you've lost the neutral somewhere (probably a bad connection), pretty strait forward. just because there are are 2 cables doesn't make it a ring. It probably isn't unless the neutral has been lost in 2 places either side of the sockets which is unlikely.
If you dap your tester across line and earth you will usually knock the trip out in my experience although not always.

Gary

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Specialised Subject. The Bleedin Obvious. John Cleese

yes true if its a radial or spurs then a lost neutral is easy, but im assuming its a ring. assumptions is the mother of all f....ups lol

Tell me about it.

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Specialised Subject. The Bleedin Obvious. John Cleese

Evening,
This may be a long shot in this case but check the brand of socket.
This is a typical fault on sockets made \supplied by MLA and most recently the lost neutral has started on CED brand.
I did an OP some while back and the MLA\Knightsbridge sockets were losing neutral,tripping and causing main RCD to trip.
obviously, you are at the fault but have you put new sockets on out of interest.
Regards
Antric

hi no I havent put any new sockets on, just had a quick look over today as didn't get to the job till late

I'm with antric2 on this. First have a look at the sockets. It might save you a lot of time. I was thinking BG nexus, I had 4 on one job fail very quickly. Socket and see was flagging a neutral issue. Customer was simply saying they did not work.

Zs

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'The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.'
John Le Carre

agree with previous posts I renewed a load of sockets (& other accessories) this week which had failed. This is on relatively new properties.

Just FYI some 2 prong testes will trip RCD's in placed L -CPC however if used L-N for a few seconds first then onto the L-CPC they are fine as. My niceic assessor pointed it out to me.

Who reads instructions for a 2 prong tester! I do now.

Remove the affected socket fronts and do a figure of eight test to the ring this will indicate if they are part of the ring or spurs,and test at the terminals to rule out or prove faulty wiring

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Regards

Dave(not Cockburn)

thanks for all that guys. its two sockets though and customer said they were both working up till the fault occured. Highly unlikely for two separate sockets to break down at exactly the same time do you think ?

No Goldenboy, I'd have agreed with you on that until the BG sockets on that job started to fail.

Two failed while we were still on site and then the other two about two week's later, a couple of days apart. They weren't more than a month old. The call backs were very annoying and time consuming and they also threw the client into a confidence conundrum. I still get nervous if I see her number come up on the phone and I expect that one day she will demand that I replace the whole lot.

SK, what brand were the sockets you mentioned a few posts back?

Antric, interesting to see you mention CED. I have had three of their RCBOs refuse to trip from new. I have stopped using the small guys' products these days. But don't get me going on MK fused spurs....call-outs because the client can't open the little drawer...grrrr.

Zs

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'The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.'
John Le Carre

But if they're on a ring, then both would appear to be working normally on the 1st break in the N, only when the 2nd break occurred would any sockets stop working.
- Andy.

yes I agree andy. thats why I feel unsure it being faulty sockets as two would basically have to fail at the same time