Electrician found "serious" (?) problem while doing other work

sarah_elton

Had electricians (2) round last night to replace my night storage heaters and most of my light fittings.

I'd also asked them to look at a plug socket that's never worked. In the process of this, they put one of their tester things in a working socket. They looked rather alarmed and said that the "live and neutral are reversed". They proceeded to test all my sockets, and found that all the original sockets in the flat are this way. :eek:

The only good ones are a double one my TV is plugged into which was put in after the flat was built (not by me, I've never touched anything electrical till now).

Now, they did explain but I still just don't understand what this means. They said they were surprised that nothing I've plugged in has ever broken, but I've lived there two years and never had a problem.

The electrician doing the job was my friend's brother in law so I trust him completely. He needs to pop back tonight to change a switch for one of the storage heaters, at which point we're going to book a time for him to come and sort out the sockets. He said it could take a couple of hours as you have to follow the wiring all round the flat.

Can anyone explain what exactly this means (I get that the live and neutral wires are round the wrong way behind the socket) and what the implications/dangers are?

They found something I did understand that scared the hell out of them and me. After finding the shoddy sockets, they looked behind a blank plate that's high on the wall in my bedroom. I've never touched it. Behind is the usual metal box, with a load of cables inside, one of which was a cut, stripped back, live one! :eek: :eek: They made that safe for me and said it was a good thing it had never touched the metal edge of the box.

All kind of disturbing. My flat is a late 80s build, and all in good condition, never had any reason to doubt the electrics.

robv_3

Having the wires crossed does not cause any issues with 99.999% of electrical goods. Very very rarely one will assume ('!!!' out of 'u' and 'me) neutral is the same as earth and either be blown into little pieces or more likely blow the fuse in the plug or consumer unit.

sarah_elton

So should I get it fixed?

I guess so since I'll just be worrying any time I buy something new and plug it in.

Also, when I sell the flat, I assume this would show up if the buyer ordered an electrical inspection. But then again who does that when they buy? I didn't bother. :rolleyes:

espresso

sarah_elton wrote: »

Had electricians (2) round last night to replace my night storage heaters and most of my light fittings.

I'd also asked them to look at a plug socket that's never worked. In the process of this, they put one of their tester things in a working socket. They looked rather alarmed and said that the "live and neutral are reversed". They proceeded to test all my sockets, and found that all the original sockets in the flat are this way.

No competent electrician would leave your property without rectifying this fault.

sarah_elton

Unfortunately they were doing my work as an evening job and it was already half nine. The main guy is coming back tonight to finish a storage heater and we're booking to fix the rest.

They're both qualified, and work for a large local company that contracts for commercial work. They do private jobs evenings/weekends.

They said that since I've lived with the electrics this way since I moved in (2+ years ago it could wait another couple of days). They did suggest I stop plugging my laptop into one of the dodgy plugs.

Luckily, my TV, DVD player, Wii and PS3 all run off a newer plug that's fine! :eek:

sarah_elton

Next question.

Since this problem is with all the plug sockets that are original to the flat, should I alert my management company and suggest other residents have theirs checked?

I'm not sure if my main fuse box is original, or whether someone's done re-wiring over the years.

I suspect it might just be my flat because I can't believe the builders wired the flats like this. So I don't want to cause unnecessary alarm. On the other hand, if the problem is wider spread I'd feel bad if anything happened.

My flat is top floor so the electricians will be up in the loft following my wiring around. If I raise the alarm and there's problems in the flat below, or the one on the ground floor, how would their wiring by accessed as presumably it's in the (concrete) floor spaces.

maninthestreet

It's an easy job to fix yourself, as long as you know what you are doing and have, of course, switched off the eletrical supply to the sockets at the fusebox before proceeding.

penrhyn

Any electrical equipment you have that's plugged into one of these sockets is unprotected by the fuse in the plug, this is a shock/fire hazard and needs investigating and fixed. A more horrific scenario would be if the consumer unit is itself reversed.
In a multi occupancy situation its even more important, as if the original electricians were colour blind/incompetant the fault may have been perpetrated through out the building.

sarah_elton

They said they'd have to follow the wiring round and work out if anything's reversed at the board.

I may not be wording that exactly as they did, I was a little lost.

penrhyn

The cables are colour coded, Red or Brown -Live, Black or Blue -Neutral, Green or Green/Yellow Earth. So hopefully relatively simple.

weekendwarrior

I wonder if the lights are reversed as well?