Electrical: How to find out which socket a spur connects back to

Saytan

Saytan

Saytan

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Electrics in my house are a bit amateurish but not dangerous (my electricians words, not mine), and i'm gradually in the process of getting it all made right as I renovate.

on the ground floor, I have a ring circuit feeding my living room and the diner half of my kitchen diner, and because DIY it has a great many spurs coming off it, some of them quite neatly buried including one that is fully flushed and plastered behind the kitchen cabinets and the tiles

Any quick way of IDing which socket it spurs back to?
 
I'd unscrew the face plate of the near by sockets and see how many live, neutral and earth are conductors are in. If there 2 then there's no spur from there but if there's 3 then something is spurred off it.

If there's multiple spurs on the ring then I'd start be identifying all the sockets which have spurs off them and then disconnecting the spur from the ring and seeing which socket now doesn't work.

There may be a better way of doing it, but this worked for me at my previous house.
 
Easy way:

Turn off the circuits completely.

Wire a spare plug as a direct short between L and N

Connect multimeter to the source of the spur which you want to know where it is going, between L & N checking for continuity, obviously there wont be any continuity at this point.

Go around the suspected faceplates plugging your shorted plug into them one by one, until the multimeter at the source buzzes that there is a short.
 
Of course spur could have more than one outlet on it, so once you find one then check behind it to see if it seems to be feeding anything else.

And make sure you take the shorted plug out of the circuit before you turn anything back on :p
 
Jez said:
Of course spur could have more than one outlet on it, so once you find one then check behind it to see if it seems to be feeding anything else.

And make sure you take the shorted plug out of the circuit before you turn anything back on :p
Click to expand...

I think they've just been lazy and done socket/spur pairs on each side of the room. Which considering they've gone to the lengths of chasing them all, is a bit silly really.
 
Tbh if its that much of a mess would be easier and cheaper to rewire it than spend time identifying then try and correct everything - plus cables prob wont be run in correct routes or zones and maybe hidden jbs etc

would be best to sort it early in the renovation before decorating

If you just want to make sure its safe you can de-rate it to 20A then all the spurs on spurs wont overload, 20A will be plenty for anything except a kitchen ring then you might need the full 32a or be careful not to use too much at once
 
ring's being rewired, but it'd be convenient to keep that socket as a spur until the kitchen gets ripped out (its wiring really is behind a lot of kitchen)

when the kitchen is done i'd transfer it to the kitchen ring and remove the spur wiring (the dining room making good will be done as part of the kitchen project)
 
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