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Discuss 16A ring oh no its a radial in the Australia area at ElectriciansForums.net

Richard Burns

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Sorry to put this up as I do not have enough information, just after some thoughts really.
Have a house where they want some additional sockets and looking at the CU (16th edition) there are two 16A circuits with two cables (2.5mm2) coming out from each, OK I thought two 16A RFCs, bit odd.
In the kitchen there are three double sockets, I have only looked at two of them, one appears to be part of a "ring" and connected correctly the other double socket has only one cable connected and the other cable has been cut short but is still live (more on this later) just the bare ends snipped off (unsleeved earth still there but not connected). I have terminated the ends and sleeved the earth so they are not exposed.
On using a voltage tester at this socket (indicating 110-150,220-250,380-500)
from the connected earth only:
to unconnected line 110V
to unconnected neutral 230V
to unconnected earth 230V
Since this was just a visit to estimate I stopped there.
The customer has had no problems with the sockets! and had PIR (electrical wiring check?) done a few years ago and everything was apparently OK! (I have not seen the report).

I am assuming that when they had a CU change (I think ten years ago) there were problems with L-E and L-N connections and the installer split the ring to two radials in the same breaker and dropped the breaker to 16A (possibly half of 32A?).
However I cannot reconcile the voltage indications. OK earth line fault so 110V to the other line. Possibly a reversed polarity somewhere and and another "line" earth fault to give the 230V between connected Earth and unconnected earth / neutral.
Anyway what do you think? Thanks

I will go back to them to say I need to check further and see the PIR report, but just confusing at the moment without further investigation.
 

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