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Message started by Dave1948 on Jan 5th, 2016, 4:14pm

Title: Ring main mystery
Post by Dave1948 on Jan 5th, 2016, 4:14pm

Hi, this question is really to satisfy my curiosity. As part of a kitchen revamp I changed the 13 amp plug sockets. What I found has left me a bit bewildered. Behind 2 of the 3 two gang sockets (there are 3 in all) I found, as expected, two cables; on the third there were 3. The kitchen ring is isolated from the rest of the ground floor and I suspected that the third cable was the live feed into the ring, so far so good. What surprised me was, despite my logic saying otherwise, not one but two of the cables were live. To my way of thinking once the feed is separated the remaining two would be dead. Can you please tell me what is wrong with my logic process. Many thanks

Title: Re: Ring main mystery
Post by londonman on Jan 5th, 2016, 6:16pm

It's a ring circuit.  So one of the two cables in Socket A will go off to the rest of the ring in one direction and in Socket C, one of the three cables will go off to the ring in the other direction.

The third wire in Socket C is feeding a spur socket somewhere or other.

Title: Re: Ring main mystery
Post by Lectrician on Jan 5th, 2016, 7:19pm


londonman wrote on Jan 5th, 2016, 6:16pm:
It's a ring circuit.  So one of the two cables in Socket A will go off to the rest of the ring in one direction and in Socket C, one of the three cables will go off to the ring in the other direction.

The third wire in Socket C is feeding a spur socket somewhere or other.


Or cooker hood spur etc.

Title: Re: Ring main mystery
Post by Dave1948 on Jan 5th, 2016, 8:03pm

Many thanks to you both, I can now see the flaw in my logic, I'm an idiot! It's obvious now you've told me, that both ends of the ring would be live otherwise it wouldn't be a ring - DOH! It's obvious to me now that a ring with a single feed into it would just be a spur and have no advantage.

Once again, many thanks for the advice and for saving my sanity!!

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