Confused with wiring found in kitchen Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[gselliott]

I'm a bit confused as to how the sockets in the kitchen have been wired up, I assumed that this was a ring main circuit as i have replaced a couple of sockets at one end of the kitchen and it looked like there was one cable coming in and another coming out going to the next socket etc.

Now I i'm not so sure, i was going to replace the socket at the other end of the kitchen with a new one and then run a spur off this but when i removed the socket i found 3 cables coming out, one cable coming in, one going to another socket in the kitchen then one going upstairs which connects to a socket in the bedroom. There is also another cable in the kitchen which is connected to the other sockets in there this is why i assumed it was a ring main? The strange thing is that if i disconnect the cable going upstairs the upstairs socket still works, there is also another cable going to the sockets upstairs.

Not sure if I have explained this very well but if anyone has any ideas as to what is going on i'd be very greatful!!

Cheers.

[sparx]

how many power ring circuits do you have?
If you have one then it will go up & downstairs!
you should look at forum projects to view a ring circuit.
I would be worried if the upstairs socket was not still live when one cable disconnected, this is the principle of rings, they are a continuous loop starting & finishing at the same fuse/mcb so opening a point on ring will still feed both ways, meaning all sockets will still work.
It seems that at one socket at least there is a spur off to an odd socket in kitchen this was the intention so if you have a number of skts on ring you can later add as many spurs off as you have skts on the ring. hope this helps Sparx

[gselliott]

Sparx thanks for the reply i'm slowly starting to get my head around this! As far as i can tell there is only 1 Ring Circuit (according to the fuse box anyway).