Hi everyone,
Firstly thank you to all on this forum who helped me to track down the problem with the plug sockets not working in 1 room of my flat - i came across this website and the comments helped me immensely!
I have registered and joined this group so i can share my experience and hopefully help others.
3 days ago i lost power to all the plug sockets in my bedroom, I live in a ground floor 2 bedroom flat and have an "old school" fuse box with fuse wire (4 fuses in total 1 for the boiler, 1 for the cooker, 1 for lights and 1 for sockets).
The fuse had not blown so i took to Google for some help and advise.
From reading the comments posted here i knew that i potentially had a broken or loose wire somewhere in the circuit.
After examining all of the sockets in the bedroom and surrounding rooms for a broken or loose wire and finding no faults i was stumped and thinking i will have to call an electrician,
It wasn't until my wife mentioned hearing a sound from 1 corner of our bedroom on the day we lost the power that sounded like "someone kicking the bedside table" and a comment somewhere on here about connector blocks under the floorboards that prompted me to lift the floorboards in that corner of our room and investigate further.
On initial inspection all i found was 2 cables running under the floor - on closer inspection 1 of the cables has a brick resting on it ... when i lifted the brick off i found the cable had a hole in it and was charred black!!
We have lived in the flat for almost 20 years and i know the previous owner was at least 3 years so that brick has been there a while!
My best assumption is that the weight of the brick combined with the heat generated by the cable has caused the brick to slowly push through the cable and cause a short.
The repair was simple, after cutting out the bad section of cable i inserted a 30 amp 3 way connector block to repair the break and hey presto power has been restored!!
Going forward i am now starting to look into the cost of upgrading the fuse box to a modern trip switch type and potentially having the flat re wired as goodness knows what other horror's may be lurking.
I have posted a few pictures - and thank you all again for posting helpful advise and tips!
Firstly thank you to all on this forum who helped me to track down the problem with the plug sockets not working in 1 room of my flat - i came across this website and the comments helped me immensely!
I have registered and joined this group so i can share my experience and hopefully help others.
3 days ago i lost power to all the plug sockets in my bedroom, I live in a ground floor 2 bedroom flat and have an "old school" fuse box with fuse wire (4 fuses in total 1 for the boiler, 1 for the cooker, 1 for lights and 1 for sockets).
The fuse had not blown so i took to Google for some help and advise.
From reading the comments posted here i knew that i potentially had a broken or loose wire somewhere in the circuit.
After examining all of the sockets in the bedroom and surrounding rooms for a broken or loose wire and finding no faults i was stumped and thinking i will have to call an electrician,
It wasn't until my wife mentioned hearing a sound from 1 corner of our bedroom on the day we lost the power that sounded like "someone kicking the bedside table" and a comment somewhere on here about connector blocks under the floorboards that prompted me to lift the floorboards in that corner of our room and investigate further.
On initial inspection all i found was 2 cables running under the floor - on closer inspection 1 of the cables has a brick resting on it ... when i lifted the brick off i found the cable had a hole in it and was charred black!!
We have lived in the flat for almost 20 years and i know the previous owner was at least 3 years so that brick has been there a while!
My best assumption is that the weight of the brick combined with the heat generated by the cable has caused the brick to slowly push through the cable and cause a short.
The repair was simple, after cutting out the bad section of cable i inserted a 30 amp 3 way connector block to repair the break and hey presto power has been restored!!
Going forward i am now starting to look into the cost of upgrading the fuse box to a modern trip switch type and potentially having the flat re wired as goodness knows what other horror's may be lurking.
I have posted a few pictures - and thank you all again for posting helpful advise and tips!
The second picture i uploaded (not the best i admit) shows the brick on the left of the picture with the black marks on it and the cable on the right!
