Excuse the naivety of the question but when looking to add an additional socket to a ring, is it ever advisable to spur as opposed to extending the ring? This would require a cable join behind the current socket to maintain the onward leg of the ring and wasn't sure if that's a concern or reason not to extend the ring.
Spur or extend the ring
- Thread starter Jupiter01
- Start date
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It is completely pointless extending the ring in such a situation.
If you just want one more socket, a spur is the best choice.
Extending the ring is worthwhile if you have, say, a room with one or two sockets and you want to add a number, for example turning it into a workroom or home office, or modernising a bedroom.
Extending the ring is worthwhile if you have, say, a room with one or two sockets and you want to add a number, for example turning it into a workroom or home office, or modernising a bedroom.
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Logically, I thought that would be the consensual view but evidently not.
What limitation does the ring extension approach pose in this situation?
Would you not then do the same for the second spur?
Extra work is not a limitation.
When I first moved into my current house there were 2 single sockets in the main bedroom, basically in opposite corners. At first decoration/new furniture I added DSSO's each side of the bed and on the other corner. Mrs Sunray complained the DSSO under the fitted dressing table (bridge between 2 drawer units) was too difficult for hair dryer etc so SSSO added above as spur then a little change round meant another spur from DSSO for TV from the first would have been much easier. That is a stud wall with eaves space storage behind so added spurs for a light and magnetic water device from original SSSO again adding the second from the first would have been easier. IE there were 4 spurs from 2 sockets in stud wall only boarded one side.
Then I added a FCU for outside socket, enough was enough so all 7 points incorporated into ring and new socket added without adding any additional cable.
In hindsight it would have been easier to extend ring at each stage rather than mess about with 3 and 4 cables into sockets.
Fair enough, but (as EFLI has pointed out) that's a view/'rule' which, if applied consistently, reduces to "never install spurs" - since if, the the future, you wanted to add a socket, you would invoke the same 'rule' and not install a spur then (in case yet another socket was needed even further into the future) ... and on and on .... !
Kind Regards, John
Yes, quite possibly, but that's purely a practical/convenience consideration - electrically there's nothing wrong with the spurs (as witness those modern bungalows in which all sockets are on spurs - spurs from a ring of JBs in the roofspace).
Kind Regards, John
No of course there's nothing wrong with spurs, otherwise I wouldn't have fitted them. However in this case with 5 points within 8ft in a stud wall there really was no reason to not include them in the ring.
I don't get the obsession the younger breed of professional electricians seems to have about radial circuits. The justification given is that there was a shortage of copper after the war etc etc, but the war didn't continue to the 1990's. There's a shortage now (of copper, or at least significant price inflation). I suspect the real justification is time and money, it's simply easier in most cases to put in a radial.
Blup
I really don't understand this silly notion that it's easier to install radials.
Getting 3x 4mm² cables into sockets is a right royal PITA, bigger chases, bigger holes, bigger conduits, additional cost of cable, etc.
Invariably there seems to be more radial than rings when the calcs are done.
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