New house, some sockets not working

BarmyBubba

Impossible to guess what the problem is but as you say you dont have a clue about electrics so you really need to get a sparkie in.

huddsta

Well I've done a years electrical installation course as part of my apprenticeship but yeah, a sparkie would probs be best.

My first thought was to ring the estate agent and my solicitor.

huddsta

Are all the dead sockets on the same ring main?

I think so bu not to sure. Is there an easy way to tell?

The circuit breakers you've been turning on / off should be visibly marked somewhere (upstairs / front / back / downstairs)??

Yes they are marked up. No. 1 & 2 say sockets and the switch is an MCB.

And / or is there more than one of the breakers with the same load marking (normally 32A for a socket circuit).

Yep

In which case .. plug something into working sockets and trip the circuit until you identify which breakers are controlling what.

There is a button to test the circuit breaker, pressing this trips out the sockets that are working.[/QUOTE]

Mikeyorks

huddsta wrote:

There is a button to test the circuit breaker, pressing this trips out the sockets that are working.

Sorry .. didn't make that as clear as I intended.

In order to identify if all the dead sockets are on the same ring :

• plug something you know works (hair drier / lamp) into a working socket
• switch off one of the 'socket' MCBs in turn until the hair drier / lamp goes off
• repeat with a good selection of live sockets

........ if it's the same MCB that operates all the live sockets - then it's close to 100% that all the dead ones are on the other (but take nothing on trust where electricity / wiring is concerned).

But I still think you'd be better giving the Vendor a quick ring? Doubt they'll have lived with the problem - so it's likely to have arisen as they moved out. Had it in mind they've probably (e.g) had something wired into a (flexed) switched socket - and decided to take the socket with them. Whoever has replaced the flex output socket with a standard one - hasn't wired it properly and has breached all or part of that ring main. The Vendor should be able to say if any last minute electrical work was done which could have affected that ring? Which could help pinpoint the problem

huddsta

switch off one of the 'socket' MCBs in turn until the hair drier / lamp goes off

There is only one MCB to control all the switches as far as I can tell, there are 2 positions with sockets written above but only one MCB controlling it.

The rest are for the storage heaters, cooker and lights.

I think I might have a problem with the immersion heater to, no hot water dispite them being "on" (red light on the switches are on). Flicking the breaker labeled immersion has no effect on the lights.

I have phoned th estate agent who have in turn contacted the vendor. They said they had no idea about the problem and then, confusingly, claimed to have not lived there for 2 years.

dougk_2

Is it possible these sockets were left from an older installation. e.g has the house been rewired but not all the old sockets taken out? We found this when we moved into our current house! It wasn't a surprise as such because we knew in advance which were oldd and which were new sockets.

Mikeyorks

huddsta wrote:

There is only one MCB to control all the switches as far as I can tell, there are 2 positions with sockets written above but only one MCB controlling it.

Sorry - unless they took one of the MCBs with them (;) ) - that doesn't make any sense from this distance!

You need an electrician! You probably don't need me to tell you that;)