Double fault........

[telectrix]

No r1 on RFC. Rn and R2 fine. Dissed 1 leg and went round with socket tester to see quickly which sockets were on each leg. Plugged in 5th outlet on first leg. L_N reverse. Opened it up to find 3 cables. 1 a spur to garage installed by builder 25 years ago. L& N in wrong way round. (On all 3 cables). Re_terminated and then found r1 restored.Happy Days.

 

[Wilko]

Good job Tel, beer o'clock ?

 

[JOURNEYMAN]

All to frequent I'm sorry to say. Came across a similar scenario myself the other week working on my mate's house only to find reversed polarity on three sockets fitted by his builder only a few years earlier. Fortunately the builder in question has now retired but makes me wonder how many other properties are out there in a similar condition.

 

[The Ghost]

yeh but, yeh but, why would r1 be restored?

 

[Deleted member 9648]

I got a call from a builder I've done stuff for now and then last week, he'd had to temporarily join some cables because I was too busy to get there when he wanted some wiring stripped out. Somehow he'd managed to link one leg of the ring to the lighting circuit, and connected ring red to lighting black. By a process of trial and error he'd discovered he could only stop the mcb tripping by disconnecting the lighting black from the DB! I got a desperation call that evening.

 

[telectrix]

yeh but, yeh but, why would r1 be restored?

must have been a bad connection on the L's in that socket. rN was 0.49, and after i'd re-terminated that 1 socket, r1 was then 0.47, whereas before it has read >99 ohms.