Power socket advice

Hurstmeister

Good afternoon all,

I am in the process of replacing the single and double power sockets in my daughters' room, and have replaced all but one without issue. On removing the front plate on the last single socket, I am faced with what appears to be an additional set of wires - From the positioning of the wires I cannot see that all of the Earth wires were together, etc, so my question is, what should I be doing here? Capping off the additional wires, or grouping all like wires together?

Hasbeen

Hurstmeister wrote: »

Good afternoon all,

I am in the process of replacing the single and double power sockets in my daughters' room, and have replaced all but one without issue. On removing the front plate on the last single socket, I am faced with what appears to be an additional set of wires - From the positioning of the wires I cannot see that all of the Earth wires were together, etc, so my question is, what should I be doing here? Capping off the additional wires, or grouping all like wires together?

Ring circuit has live, neutral, earth, in same out. When you say additional what is extra?

gardner1

Ring circuit......2 live 2 neutral 2 earth

[Deleted User]

gardner1 wrote: »

Ring circuit......2 live 2 neutral 2 earth

Not necessarily, if there's a spur there will be three of each.

gardner1

jack_pott wrote: »

Not necessarily, if there's a spur there will be three of each.

Quite right......but at the end of the day its still a case of same colour wires into L/N/Earth

FreeBear

gardner1 wrote: »

Quite right......but at the end of the day its still a case of same colour wires into L/N/Earth

Depending on the age of the wires. It might be a pair of red & black with a brown & blue fitted post 2004. Or worse, a pair of brown & blue and a single red & black where someone has raided a junk box of dodgy cabling.

onomatopoeia99

FreeBear wrote: »

Depending on the age of the wires. It might be a pair of red & black with a brown & blue fitted post 2004. Or worse, a pair of brown & blue and a single red & black where someone has raided a junk box of dodgy cabling.

Given how long PVC sheathed cable lasts, is red / black "dodgy", and if so, in what way?

gardner1

Well whatever the colours and as long as the OP has common sense.......in answer to his original post....group all like wires together

abssorb

Hurstmeister wrote: »

Good afternoon all,

I am in the process of replacing the single and double power sockets in my daughters' room, and have replaced all but one without issue. On removing the front plate on the last single socket, I am faced with what appears to be an additional set of wires - From the positioning of the wires I cannot see that all of the Earth wires were together, etc, so my question is, what should I be doing here? Capping off the additional wires, or grouping all like wires together?

The extra wires might mean that someone has added a spur to the ring main in the past.

Unlike the live and neutral, in old wiring it's not necessary for the earths to touch each other, as long as each goes to earth then they are connected. It's not best practice, but was commonplace. You can group all the earths together if they are separate. If that's not convenient, you can use a connector in the back-box, but at least one earth wire must go to the socket face plate. You can add a short length of solid copper wire if necessary.
Take extra care if you have metal face plates.

Just copy the live and neutral configuration from old to new.

[Deleted User]

gardner1 wrote: »

Well whatever the colours and as long as the OP has common sense.......in answer to his original post....group all like wires together

...just don't apply the same logic to a lighting circuit....