Have i killed my circuit breaker

[RichAndJen]

Hi folks, hoping for some pointers.
My daughter drilled through her socket ring main ( someone ran the wires across the wall ‍ under the plaster). She'll be buying a good detector very soon, but enough of the 'i told you so'.

The wires were running from the ceiling down and across the wall to a socket. We have both flavours of colour coding so obviously something got added to at some point.

As the socket is surplus to needs and the wall is about to be framed and clad she just cut back to the damage and put the wires into a round terminal block. Red+brown, blue+black etc.

We thought that would be job done but something isn't right. She can reset the trip and it stays reset but we're not getting any juice on the remaining sockets. Other circuits are fine so she hasn't blown the house fuse or totally destroyed the mcb.

I'm planning to go over tomorrow with a meter and check if we're getting output from the breaker at the board.

My question (finally) is could she have killed the breaker? Its not a particularly modern mcb so not sure if spares will be available. Any any pointers on where to look if it's not the breaker?

 

[StephenStephen]

Hi there - which country is this happening in?

 

[Murdochcat]

A photo would be handy

 

[RichAndJen]

Uk, will take some pics tomorrow when i'm there. Thanks for taking the time to read

 

[securespark]

Probably tripped an RCD somewhere.

 

[jj4091]

Could it be the first socket in a radial circuit that someone has created from an FCU

 

[Old tool guy]

Could it be the first socket in a radial circuit that someone has created from an FCU

Trying to translate this into ‘mericun english, sounds like the first thing i thought of: the outlet she disabled feeds the next one down the line.

 

[jj4091]

Trying to translate this into ‘mericun english, sounds like the first thing i thought of: the outlet she disabled feeds the next one down the line.

It could on a ring main as well but would be less likely to prevent the the rest of the sockets working.
In English English

 

[RichAndJen]

Thanks everyone for the the tips, seems we did actually kill the breaker, no output from it on the board, luckily we sourced a spare and all is operating as it should now.

 

[eveares]

put the wires into a round terminal block.

I assume this round terminal block remains accsesible and is not burried in the wall, otherwise you should have used a maintance free junction box.

 

[ericmark]

I would hope, 1st November, now fixed, I did smile at the American English, and the answer was wrong called it a "ring main" instead of a "ring final" but since they don't have ring finals in the USA likely it all went over his head.

Ring mains supply our homes, and it allows one section to be isolated to do work on it, without homes loosing their supply, the ring final is inside our homes, designed after second world war to reduce the copper needed to wire up new homes, with the idea homes would be electric heated, did not really happen that way, we now rate a 13 amp socket at only 2 kW continuous and 3 kW for short time, like boiling a kettle, which is not done in the USA as at 120 volts it takes too long.

The Wiki shows permitted cable routes and this shows idea of ring final and this the radial, there is also a lot more in Wiki including Abbreviations and Definitions it does say check Wiki first, but few do I would think.