Hi John, I'm guessing you are probably a qualified electrician, I didn't mean to offend you ....
Nope - I am not, never have been and never will be an electrician - and I certainly wasn't offended, nor was I intending to be critical. I was merely seeking clarification. Martin suggested that you you did a systematic series of 'dead' IR tests and you responded...
Thanks Martin - that is exactly what I plan to do.
Knowing that, until recently, you didn't even have a plug-in tester, I was wondering how you planned to do the IR tests. In honesty, I suppose that it was a sort-of rhetorical question, in the sense that I knew you didn't have the means to do such tests, but I assumed that your response would indicate what sort of systematic tests you
were going to do.
What I'm planning on doing is taking all the cables out of the scockets and wiring into connector blocks. Find the live wire form the fuse box then slowly reconnect one by one a) to map out the current wiring b) I can eliminate sockets to see where the fault lies.
That brings me back to my question. With the equipment you have, how are you hoping to 'see where the fault lies'. You presumably cannot undertake any 'dead' tests, such as Martin suggested, so I presume that you will be relying on 'live' tests with your plug in tester. As has been pointed out, they can give some very confusing, sometimes misleading, results. However, you could be lucky - so good luck!
According to the test I have 2 issues 1) earth issue on wires to one socket, 2) incomplete loop on the other two sockets. I think I can find these - but you never know I could prove to be wrong !
Without having seen this device, I suspect that the 'red light on the loop test' refers to the Earth Loop Fault Impedance being too high, not to an 'incomplete loop' in the sense that I think (maybe incorrectly!) you are assuming (i.e. a 'broken ring circuit').
As you imply, if the circuit is a ring circuit which has been 'messed with' over the years, it may not still be a simple ring - in which case even tracing the 'arrangement' of the ring, let alone isolating the fault(s) might prove rather (or very) difficult.
Anyway, as I said, good luck - and we'll be interested to hear what you find. Although I'm not an electrician, I certainly would investigate such a fault in my home myself - but at least I do have the equipment to do it.
Kind Regards, John.