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Probably a loose neutral then - if you're confident to, you could open up the fuse board and check that all the connections are tight, just obviously be very careful, as even with the main switch off the incoming supply is still live... If it's loose in the meter, officially you'd have to get...

A tumble dryer has a fairly good chance of drawing the full 13A, so if you tried to use the tumble dryer together with a large load like a hoover you're at risk of blowing the fuse in the FCU... Can you extend the ring at all, rather than spurring everything?

Did you put any force on the cable at any point or anything like that (I'm thinking if perhaps the cable went up a cavity wall in to a junction box say, then by working on it to put it in the new switch if a connection was a little loose it may have pulled out, and broken the lighting loop?)

It's worth checking it's definitely 1.5mm, it could be that the existing ring was wired in a larger cable for some reason, so they have used 2.5mm for the new bits, but because it's a larger cable before, it looks like 1.5 if you see what I mean?

Use a grid switch with a normal light switch module, and a 20A DP switch - you can then use this to supply your socket. You may need an FCU supplying the DP switch, it depends what type of circuit the socket is on...

Either he's wired it in to the main switch directly, or we've found the guy who wires CUs like this: http://www.diynot.com/wiki/electrics:pic1!

I don't think they are for the summer house (although I'm no expert so might be wrong), but the outdoor electrical work is most certainly notifiable under Part P (unless you're in Scotland), so unless you got an electrician who's a member of a self certification scheme to do the work (in which...

Is the switch for the bathroom light on the same panel as the landing light, as if so it sounds like someones 2-way'd the wrong one, so you're bathroom light is 2-way instead of the landing. If you're happy to, then after isolating appropriately etc, pics from behind the switches upstairs and...

It's not necessarily wrong - if it's a radial circuit, then there's nothing wrong with using a junction box (as long as the box is accessible), and equally nothing wrong with running sockets off sockets. If however it's a ring circuit, then this is definitely wrong, and rather dangerous. Do...

As has been said - if the circuit is already protected by a 30mA RCD, then there is no need to put a second one on, it serves no function as such - any fault should in theory take out both RCDs anyway... This is why when you push the test button on your plug-in RCD, it generates a small fault...

In theory it should be fine, since across the EU we are nominally the same voltage etc. It's possible that there's a fault with it causing e.g. neutral to earth leakage, which wouldn't trip an MCB, but might cause an RCD to trip - on the continent my understanding is that RCDs are much rarer...

It depends what the expected load is, and what the suppliers cutout is - both for whether the RCD is useable, and whether the supply is up to an electric shower. If the RCD won't take it, then if it's a new enough CU an electrician (I'm assuming you're not intending to this yourself?) can...

Well, the dimmer will work (since that just needs the live and switched live (the black isn't neutral!)), but it won't be safe, since any fault in the switch or a wire coming loose etc means the whole front plate of the switch will be live, ready to electrocute the next person who touches it -...

It's very difficult to say without seeing it - your best option would be to get a spark in to advise, most would be happy to pop round, advise on what cable and any restrictions in its installation, if they're then going to get the job of connecting it all up etc. As for selling leccy back to...

Without replacing the cable going to the switch, the simple answer is you can't use that switch, as it MUST be earthed, but you don't have an earth available - it's also a plastic backbox, so there's no chance that e.g. the cables have been run through conduit and you've got the earth that way...

I was replacing the CU (yes I notified my LABC etc), so wanted to be able to put the new one in without having to break any of the DNO seals, or (shudder) work live...

Terminal 1-4 doesn't help unless we know what the RCCB is - a picture may help? If it doesn't trip when the test button is pushed, either it's been wired wrong, or it's faulty (could be somethign as simple as a mechanical problem with the button, or could just be totally dead). While you...

If you're chasing the cable, it might be nice to sink the socket in to the wall at the same time, rather than leaving it on the skirting board (in fact if it's an old type of socket then the regs might mean you can't leave it on the skirting board at all...)

The best thing to do with that sort of screwdriver is throw it away - they give misleading information at the best of times, dangerous information at the worst. Get a proper multimeter, put it on an appropriate AC volts scale, and see if you get 230(ish) volts between live and neutral when...

On the isolator that British Gas (well, technically Siemens who they subcontract it to) installed for me, for the tails between meter and isolator they used double insulated ones that have both layers coloured. Even so, the guy still put coloured sticky labels round them that have L and N...