2 Radials into a 32A B type breaker and other wonders !!!

[Sav]

Hi all,
Hope you guys are all enjoying the nice weather and not working inside some dark small cupboard like I was today !!!!
Anyway, here is the scenario. Neighbour comes over this morning and says her fuse for downstairs has tripped and cannot be re-set.
I go and take a quick look and test and found the following.

The downstairs mcb, B Type 32A BSEN60898 Hager controls the living room, the conservatory, the dining room and the kitchen.

I was getting wierd readings, so i took off the sockets and found that the conservatory sockets had live-neutral reversed, the kitchen sockets were not in the ring, but somehow spured off from a junction box which cannot be traced ( under tiled floor or in wall somewhere) and also 2 LIVE AND EXPOSED cables behind the washing machine, just hanging there !! (Old red/black).

I rectified the conservatory sockets and made safe the hanging ones and also traced a faulty leg to one of the kitchen sockets (which had an earth fault).

So now, we have 2 legs in a 32A breaker but not in a ring. As a precaution, i replaced the 32A with a 16A and put both legs into there. The board is a Hager non RCD with 8 ways and no spare ways to separate the legs. is this ok for now, with regards to the 16A mcb, as there is no spare way ( I have advised her that the board is too small for the circuits). The board also has a couple of the lighting circuits doubled up in a 6a mcb and the upstairs ring mcb also a 32A, has a another 2.5mm inside it for the garage supply. I removed this as a precaution.

Best of all, the conservatory was built 3 years ago (by our eastern european friends) and the consumer unit and wiring added then (not a dual RCD board or any RCD protection at all)!!!! The lady says that the sockets were working ok in the conservatory (computer, floorlamp etc ). Please explain !!
Thanks and best regards,
Sav

 

[morph]

explain what i never done it

why the sockets worked even though line and neutral reversal?
yep they do that

 

[yellowvanman]

I guess you mean explain why the things worked with the polarity reversed.

Lamps will work ok as they are not sensitive to polarity. Computer probably worked because one of the first things to happen in a computer is to convert the 230V to lower voltages like 12V (usually dc) and this would be done via a transformer, again polarity insensitive.

Not a new theme to your story though! Not the first and certainly not the last!

 

[jason jones]

as long as the extra 2.5 coming from the upstairs ring mcb goes to only one socket in the garage or a spur then more sockets, that can go back in the breaker as it is just like spuring off a socket