Extending earth wire from socket

tallguyjoe31

Hey all

I'm replacing a socket, but the earth wire isn't long enough so I need to extend it. I have bought some In-Line Wire Connectors from screwfix.

I just have a couple of questions about the process. Firstly, the earth cable consists of two individual wires sleeved together. Should I be using one connector on each wire separately? Secondly, assuming I do use one connector on each wire, how would I go about sleeving them after the join? Should they be sleeved together again? And finally, what type of wire should I be using for the extension? Will any copper wire do? Amazon sell a lot of cheap copper crafting wire.

Thanks

Ectophile

You'd be better separating the two wires, and extending each of them separately. Otherwise, you'd be trying to jam two wires into a connector designed for one.

Make sure each cable is sleeved. You can buy green/yellow stripey sleeving from any decent electrical retailer.

Use proper electrical cable, at least 1.5mm². That's the size of the earth wire on a standard house wiring cable.

matbe

Just use one connector and two pieces of 1.5mm cable the easiest way is a connector block as opposed to in line crimps.
sleeve them up together.

tallguyjoe31

Could you send a link showing an example of an appropriate connector block please?

matbe

Google

30 amp connector strip

stator

Why aren't you just stripping back a little more of the cable sleeving so that your earth wire is longer and then trim the live and neutral a bit.
The earth is supposed to be longer than the other two so that it is the last cable to disconnect if it gets yanked out. I don't like your idea of extending it.

Mr.Generous

stator wrote: »

Why aren't you just stripping back a little more of the cable sleeving so that your earth wire is longer and then trim the live and neutral a bit.
The earth is supposed to be longer than the other two so that it is the last cable to disconnect if it gets yanked out. I don't like your idea of extending it.

I would presume no cable to strip, some numpty has stripped it short. I'd go down the terminal block route and join the earth's. I'd just strip a bit of 2.5mm to get the earth out, or use the live or neutral wire from 1.5mm an sleeve it as earth. I have found this where metal sockets have been put in and the earth point is not in the same place, don't know why but its always been where someone has fitted metal stuff, maybe because they do it themselves and don't think to leave some slack.