Corosion/Water Drops in an Electrical Socket

LavenderBees

Hi,

Hoping someone can help point me in the right direction to investigate this with the least disruption and least spend.

Yesterday morning, one of my electrical sockets on an internal wall in the living room sounded like it was sizzling, so I quickly unplugged the lamp and laptop, and last night an electrician (who I've used before and has done very good work for me) came to check it. He said the cause of the "arcing" was that the wires were quite loosely connected, no problem, would simply wire it properly.

Unfortunately, he also pointed out to me that the socket box itself was becoming coroded and when he wiped his finger inside, it came out wet. . He didn't feel that this had affected my electrics at all, though.

But somehow very small (I'm assuming) amounts of water are dripping into this socket.

My little house is a 2 up 2 down, and this socket is as far from a water source in the house as it's possible to be. The bathroom is over the kitchen, and the kitchen's water supply is on a completely different wall. Feeling the internal walls in the living room and the kitchen (which it backs onto), everything feels fine. There's no sign of any damp on the ceilings or walls.

The damp proof course in that area was redone about 3 years ago, as the original attempt 2 years before didn't seem to have taken properly, but that was easy to spot as the wall became damp. Even someone inexperienced like me, could easily spot there was a problem.

My first thought is to contact the dpc company and ask them to come and check for damp. Is there anything else I should be doing? Unfortunately, I can't check under the bath as it's all boxed in and would need the sink removing just to get the side of the bath off. BUt I resealed round the bath a year or so ago, and it still looks ok.

The spare room is above this part of the living room, but the boiler is over the other side of the room (above the external wall in the kitchen where the water pipes are), and I can't see any water pipes above where this electricity socket is.

I've been awake much of the night trying to puzzle this one out and trying to think of the way forward to get to the bottom of it. When I did sleep, I dreamt of rats swimming out of my electricity sockets all over the house. So any advice will be greatly appreciated.

many thanks in anticipation

LB xx

Yorksboy

Hi

The damp is probably due to condensation. Is this a cold wall?

LavenderBees

Yorksboy wrote: »

Hi

The damp is probably due to condensation. Is this a cold wall?

Hi, YB

The wall possibly is cold....it feels cold to the touch.

It doesn't have a heater on it. The heater is over the other side of the living room, which I do use. I rarely have heating on in the kitchen (the heater is over the other side of the room in the kitchen too, though the cooker is fairly close to this wall). There is a multi fuel stove in the living room which I use once or twice a week. There's no sign of condensation on the wall itself that I can see though. Would I not see some signs?

If it is condensation, how would I resolve it...? Where possible, I don't use my heating (e.g. this week has been mild), and the temperature is comfortable for me.

many thanks

xx

Yorksboy

Hi
If your electrician has fixed the socket then I wouldn't worry too much. You can test the wall for damp yourself with a simple meter- amazon sell them or less than £20. If the wall is damp then you need to go down the dpc route. If the wall is dry then you should consider if it is condensation. Do you get condensation elsewhere? Improved ventilation always helps reduce condensation.

I guess the above won't really help you. I would say that if the electrician thought that there was a major problem with the socket being damp he/she would have told you not to use it!

LavenderBees

Yorksboy wrote: »

Hi
If your electrician has fixed the socket then I wouldn't worry too much. You can test the wall for damp yourself with a simple meter- amazon sell them or less than £20. If the wall is damp then you need to go down the dpc route. If the wall is dry then you should consider if it is condensation. Do you get condensation elsewhere? Improved ventilation always helps reduce condensation.

I guess the above won't really help you. I would say that if the electrician thought that there was a major problem with the socket being damp he/she would have told you not to use it!

Yes, the electrician kept saying he didn't think it would cause a problem with the electrics, but it would be good to get to the bottom of it. I'm off to have a look at Amazon now for a meter.

RE condensation - what I was wondering is if the fact that there is sometimes condensation in the kitchen when cooking in the winter, so perhaps with this being the wall between the two rooms, that is why it is affected. I haven't noticed condensation anywhere else.

Thanks for your help, Yorksboy. Much appreciate it.

xx

Ben84

If the socket in in an internal wall and not an external wall, condensation is unlikely to be the source as it shouldn't be cold inside the socket.