I've had some upstairs floorboards up this week trying to stop them squeaking, and I've come across an interesting bit of wiring which I think needs looking at, just after your opinion please
Theres a round junction box that's got 4x 2.5 t&e going into it. 2 of them are grey covered, as with all the wiring in the main house, and the other 2 are white covered like all the wiring in the "new" extension (mid 90s, built by OH's ex husband)
We had the kitchen redone a few years back. There was only 2 sockets originally - one over the worktop and one behind the fridge, both on the downstairs radial circuit. These were left alone, and a new ring main was added for more sockets, dishwasher, extractor etc. At the same time the old 4 fuse CU was removed and replaced with a 12 way split load one. All 12 ways are being used. At the time, we thought that the new sockets in the extension had been done by just extending the radial circuits upstairs and downstairs.
Looking at this wiring I've found, one grey one heads towards the CU, one goes to a socket in the bedroom and the 2 white cables head off towards the extension. I'm thinking now that it might be that its a ring main that has been grafted onto the radial circuit as a temporary measure until the consumer unit was upgraded, which he never got round to doing.
If this is the case, I'm assuming that the best thing to do would be to remove them from the junction box and put them on a circuit of their own? There is a fair bit of a lack in the cables, so I think they will probably reach the meter cupboard without being extended. But having shelled out for a new CU to be fitted relatively recently, ideally I don't want to have to scrap that and swap it for a bigger one. The only thought I've had on this would be to put 2 of the smaller radial circuits (there's a couple with just 2 or 3 sockets on) back to being fed from one breaker as they were before, freeing up a breaker for the extension's ring main.
Alternatively, is it possible to fit a 2nd smaller consumer unit just for that 1 circuit, which would leave space for adding additional circuits in the future, such as power and lights for the garage.
Thanks in advance
and sorry if that's a bit of a waffle