wrote in message
ps.com...
Hey Folks,

I recently had to replace a ring main socket in a part of the house
that was re-wired 20+ years ago by an ex-electricity board inspector.
I was surprised to see that the earth connectors, instead of being
wired into the socket, were twisted together along with a flying earth
and connected to the earth connector in the metal box. The flying
earth alone went to the socket. None of the earths were sheathed!

Previously, I would have connected all three earth wires into the
socket. However, this unexpected configuration seems less likely to
come adrift because the three-wire collection goes into a fixed
connector and only a single wire goes to the socket. The three-wire
collection only needs disturbing if re-wiring is needed, not whenever
a socket is replaced.

(I recently bought a socket from Wickes; it had a square hole for the
earths and I had difficulty getting three thin earths to stay in. I
dislike bending the ends as they fall off if you have to straighten
them out.)

Apart from the sheathing, is the unexpected configuration: legal, less
safe, more safe?

Some of the junction boxes in my house have a similar approach - the earth
wires are all twisted together external to the junction box and unsheathed.
AFAIK there was also an earth into the junction box, but there was more
space and less tangle inside with only one earth instead of one from each
T&E.

Now if the majority of the earth wires are external there may be no need of
sheathing but I would have thought that wires internal to a box would need
sheathing, because there is always a chance that one of them could come into
contact with a live or neutral teminal as the socket was positioned during
fitting or removal.

Still, it seems that it may have been common practice at one time.

Cheers

Dave R

P.S. which part of the country is this house in?

My house is in Berkshire and they do things differently from the way they
are done in Suffolk (small things like the way pipes are fixed to walls
etc.).