Sockets have stopped working

[andrewem]

Hi all.

I've got a problem in my house. There are three sockets on my kitchen wall that have stopped working.

All other sockets in the house work fine, including two others in the kitchen (on the opposite wall to those that are broken).

The kitchen sockets that don't work are on the external wall. So looking at the house from the front door, they are on the right hand side wall.

I checked upstairs, above the kitchen and there are no sockets on that wall.

I had an electrician round, who did some tests on the fusebox and we took tiles off the wall around the broken sockets to trace the cables, and they seem to be fed from above (i.e. the cables come down to the sockets).

Now, would it be fair to think these sockets are a branch off the ring main upstairs, and that the branch may not have been done properly?

I think I am going to have to take the floorboards up in the room above the kitchen, but this room has laminate flooring and therefore I'll have to break it.

We are hoping to sell the house this year so I don't want to spend a lot, but obviously I can't sell with some sockets not working.

Advise / experience please?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

 

[securespark]

Are they controlled by a switched fused spur or similar?

Have you got neutral & earth continuity at the socket (ie just lost the live)?

 

[sparkyspike]

The best person to answer this question is the electrician you had round before. What did he say to you? Did he establish whether they were on a ring or a radial?

The dead sockets will most likely be on a radial as a loose/broken connection is unlikely to disconnect both sides of a ring (although it's possible).

The radial circuit will be a) a spur off a ring (which means it hasn't been done properly and is overloaded), b) a fused spur off a ring (which means you need to look for a switched-fused-connection unit (fused spur), or c) a simple radial from the fusebox.

So look for a fused spur somewhere, or a blown fuse/breaker in the fusebox, or something else which has stopped working.

And get the electrican back. I can't understand why he needed to take tiles off the wall!

 

[andrewem]

Hi.

Thanks for the constructive replies.

It helps because when I get another sparky round, I will know if he's good by what his approach to solving this will be.

The electrician found no continuity in the dead sockets (as far as I can remember).

We couldn't find any obvious fuse spurs, and he took the tiles off to see if the sockets were fed from cables above or below.