Find First & Last Socket & Make Ring or Rewire the L

We are in the process of doing a loft conversion and have come to the electrics part of the job. My husband has decided to put in a new circuit for the loft - which shouldn\\\'t present any problems. However, before undertaking this, he decided to put in a Consumer Unit replacing the fuse box which was already there. My father has worked with electrics a great deal in the past and has some professional knowledge as well as a vast amount of diy experience and he has been helping. They have been looking at the main circuit our house sockets are on - yes, upstairs and downstairs all on the same main circuit. This only has one wire going in to it and so is presumed to be a radial circuit. My father wants to convert this to a ring. This would presumably involve finding the last and the first socket and an extremely laborious process. Is this the right way to go? Rewiring the house would take, probably, weeks and involve lifting solid wood flooring which is not easily lifted. Any advice would be much appreciated. We have another circuit, which appears to be a ring, and a problem on that but I will post separately about that when I have a moment. Thanks.

look in all sockets. most will have 2, apart from the final socket, which will have 1.

but be aware of branches on radials

Branches on radials - yes, that's the bit we're concerned about. Is there are way of telling that they're branches (sorry if that's a silly question, not as knowledgeable as my husband and dad!)?

lleigh said:

Branches on radials - yes, that's the bit we're concerned about. Is there are way of telling that they're branches (sorry if that's a silly question, not as knowledgeable as my husband and dad!)?

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trace every cable. only way. few ways of doin it. 1: visually. but involves lifting boards etc

or remove every socket front and all fused spurs. use a multimeter to find continuity between cables. this should be 1 leg of the radial

take every socket off and trace the cables. Draw a diagram. If you're redecorating you could draw the cables on the surface of the wall. Might help plan the route of any new cables.

If you could borrow a continuity tester ( not probes, one that can read low resistances) you can determine if the circuit is actually a ring as the reading you take at the sockets will be substantially the same

SB

Thanks for all your help. My dad has asked me to buy him a tester for his birthday - which was two days ago! Not an exciting present, but his old tester (not sure what type) doesn't do everything he wants it to do and isn't 100% reliable. We are planning to work through the sockets today and try and see what's what. Thanks, particularly, for the advice about checking for continuity - I gather this is what my dad wants to do but I don't know if he has the right equipment. So, we may not do that today, but being able to tell whether it's a ring or not will be particularly helpful, so thanks for the advice. The thing we're most worried about is how many spurs we might find, however no doubt we'll work out way round them all and I know both my dad and my husband are aware that there shouldn't be more than one socket/double socket on each spur. Unfortunately, my husband is away this weekend and so it's up to dad and me to do the work! Thanks to everyone for their help.