Electrical wall sockets

galwaydude18

Hi in the room where I have my pc I have only one single socket to power about 10 plugs! I use one of those extension leads with double adapters and i'm afraid of it going on fire! I'm just wondering how hard would it be to replace my single eectrical wall socket with four or 5 double sockets? I realise that you would have to loop the sockets! any help on this situation will be appreciated! I have contacted several electricans about this and none of the will get back to me! I feel confident enought to do this by myself! Thanks in advanve

tapest

galwaydude18 wrote:

Hi in the room where I have my pc I have only one single socket to power about 10 plugs! I use one of those extension leads with double adapters and i'm afraid of it going on fire! I'm just wondering how hard would it be to replace my single eectrical wall socket with four or 5 double sockets? I realise that you would have to loop the sockets! any help on this situation will be appreciated! I have contacted several electricans about this and none of the will get back to me! I feel confident enought to do this by myself! Thanks in advanve

Hi
Firstly I'm not a sparks. How old is wiring? Two types of wiring 1 radial , 2 ring mains
If you house is newish, or was rewired in last 10 years it probably is ring mains. Usually 3 rings wired. 1 for downstairs, 1 for upstairs and 1 for kitchen where the load is expected to be greater. each circuit has its own mcb(fuse switch) at the consumer unit, typically 20 amp rating. The ring ( think circle ) circuit is used to spread the load as evenly as possible over the cable . Now this is important....the cable used is 2.5mm square, which can draw / carry at max about 25 amps. And this is for all the sockets on this circuit.You do the maths...Watt = volts x amps. All your equipment has a wattage label, the voltage is 220/240. this way you can estimate the amps the cable needs to carry to power the equip. Don't forget ALL the sockets on this circuit, including other rooms. If you need more power, the way to go is a separate circuit directly from consumer unit / fuse board. Hope this shows you that it is NOT straight forward.And yes I am trying to frighten you. Get it wrong and you got FIRE. Overloading a cable is like turning a cable into an electrical fire element. And it will get hot where you can't see it, a tight cable bend under the floor.
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rooferPete

Very well answered Tapest,

I am not an electrician either but I know enough about the dangers of electricty never to try working on it myself.

I do know some of the basics but where lives could be put at risk it is the best example of where a little knowledge can be very dangerous.

The system you have may be safer than trying to wire in a bank of sockets yourself because when you think about it all you are doing is putting the trail sockets on the wall as permanent fixtures.

My advice would be until you can get an electrician stay with your present system, but unplug the items you don't need all the time.

I don't mean leaving the television etc on stand by mode because they are still drawing electricity, switch them off and lower the load on your system.

Stoner

Wiring up extra twin sockets is very easy. they are cabled in parallel, keep the brown to brown, blue to blue and earth to earth, loop in and out and make sure that you dont have more then two cables in each connection ( you may have three in the first but this will make your additional sockets just the same as the extension lead)
If you are only using an extension lead then get one with an over all fuse rating so you can fuse it down if you want. What you have should be enough.
Unless you can maintain the loop in your circuit (ie do it without having to have three cables in each connection) there is no point in going any furter as spuring extra sockets is really just a hardwired extension lead.
Have you RCD protection on your board? ie is there a switch that kocks off all the sockets in your place when you over fill the kettle etc? onw sw that will turn off all your sockets?
If you have then get a good extension lead (fused seperatley to the plug so you can fused it down) and leave what you have alone.
If you have no RCD and you have old cabling, (and cant afford to rewire) replace the socket with a socket /RCD combined unit and plug your extension lead into it.

In short if you have a good extension lead with RCD(ELCD) protected cabling then leave well enough alone. If you are overloading the place then its a complete extra circuit you need and not extra sockets.
Typically you should have a ring circuit upstairs, one downstairs and one or two radial circuits in the kitchen (radial in the kitchen is safer)
Rememeber dont do it if your unsure, extra sockets does not reduce the overall load/overload danger

Jackz

My opinion (I aint qualified either so my this is just a personal opinion not professional advice)

The MCB will protect the cable.

In practice according to an electrician I know:

Ring Main in a standard 3 bedroom house (approx cable runs) protect with 25 Amp MCB- planning for a 20 Amp load 20% allowance.

Radial in a standard 3 bedroom house (approx cable runs) protect with 20 Amp MCB - planning for a 16 Amp load 20% allowance.

I would go to the board to determine if the circuit were radial or ring main, if the trip only has one wire its a radial circit (unless it goes to a junction box in the attic where it becomes a spider circuit if the wiring is old I would stop and get an electrician) if it has two turn off the trip disconnect one of the wires, if all the sockets that were switched on/off by the trip still have power and the disconnected wire is live its a ring if only half or some of them are working two radial circuits are connected to one trip or the second wire is going to a pumped shower or some thing else. (You could really strike it lucky here you could move one of the circuits to a seperate trip).

The load on the circuit will not dramatically increase if GalwayDude puts up 3 more sockets as an extended spur beside his existing socket in my opinion isn't this what he has already done using an extension lead etc? Cable length might be a factor but in small house considering that computer equipment are the things he's plugging it should not be a problem.

Problems might occour in the future if something else is plugged in. e.g. an oil filled radiator.

But in my opinion the trip will protect the cable over the distances in a small house.

I have done this but I asked an electrician first when he said it was fine I went ahead im not telling you to go ahead with it just that if your house is similar to mine and has similar circuits and loads this will be possible and easy to do.