Identifying A Ring from A Radial Circuit?

blackeyes

Hi All,
Can anyone tell me how to identify if the sockets in the house are on a ring or radial circuit? Just moved in and there is only 2 double sockets in every room...never enough!. Hoping at some point to add one spur in each room but want to figure out first which kind of circuits the house has!.

So far I appear to have 7 socket mcb's on the consumer board, all with B20 mcb's on. I've opened 5 sockets around the house and all are fed by 2 cables.
I've also noticed that there are 4 blank plates on the consumer unit. Is it easy to add in say another mcb to run a few sockets on their own circuit if necessary?

I may in the end get a sparky out but just want to gather some information, always like to learn something new :-)

Ciao & Thanks,

BE.

enmac

radial circuits are protected by 20amp mcbs
ring ciruits are protected by 32amp mcbs

Steve

Installing the breakers and sockets is the easy part.
Installing the wiring is the tricky bit unless you are planning to re-decorate everywhere.

blackeyes

Ok so I'd be right in thinking that the sockets in the house are on a radial circuit given that the mcb's are B20's?

As for putting in a new breaker and wiring that is good news. All the sockets I want to put in are on the one wall the length of the house so as its a dormer I have access to the back of the walls all the way along, this might be my best option then

Thanks for all the info.

enmac

Blackeyes,

Yes you have radial circuits, assuming the wiring was done as per the regulations.
Another thing to note is that you cannot have more than 10 sockets points(single or double sockets counts as one point) on a radial circuit and a radial circuit should not serve more than two rooms.

Its really not good practice to have different radial circuits feeding the same room apart from the kitchen where you must have 2 radial circuits.

maybe you could turn off the mcbs, one at a time and check how many socket points are on each radial.

blackeyes

So I've finally identified which rooms are on which MCB and thankfully all seems to be standard, feeding 2 rooms per MCB on 20amp. So I then decided to find the final socket on one of the radial circuits. Easy enough as there appears to only be an average of four sockets per radial circuit.

There appears to be behind what I believe is the last socket, a twin & earth which is correct but there is also an extra single earth cable coming into the box as well...is this normal? If I want to extend the radial do I need also a separate earth cable as well as a lenght of twin & earth??

Steve

The single earth is probably connected to pipework in a nearby hotpress or bathroom.

You can extend the circuit by using 2.5sq T+E, no need for a separate earth.

davelerave

blackeyes wrote: »

Hi All,
Can anyone tell me how to identify if the sockets in the house are on a ring or radial circuit? Just moved in and there is only 2 double sockets in every room...never enough!. Hoping at some point to add one spur in each room but want to figure out first which kind of circuits the house has!.

So far I appear to have 7 socket mcb's on the consumer board, all with B20 mcb's on. I've opened 5 sockets around the house and all are fed by 2 cables.
I've also noticed that there are 4 blank plates on the consumer unit. Is it easy to add in say another mcb to run a few sockets on their own circuit if necessary?

I may in the end get a sparky out but just want to gather some information, always like to learn something new :-)

Ciao & Thanks,

BE.

when you pull off a socket seperate the two browns if they're both live you're on a ring.