"SantaUK" Aye Right!!! wrote in message
...
Funny you should bring this up. I have been in my house for two years and
from the start I was aware that my garage, a brick built one, attached to
the front of the house, is fed from the upper ring. I wasn't too
concerned
until I went to add a double socket into a bed room, when I took off an
existing socket and found three cables into it. Obviously two for the
ring,
and whats the other for????? Oh - its a spur to the garage! I assumed
the
garage would have been part of the ring itself, but no - its just a spur.
I
have fitted a heater and lights in the garage, so I think I'll put a fused
spur in the bedroom to be on the safe side before bigger and better
adjustments are made.
--

You think that's bad - we had an armoured cable running the length of the
garden for an old shed and greenhouse that we demolished. Rotovated the
lawn which nicked the cable in a couple of places. Watered the new lawn for
about an hour or two with the hose and suddenly the downstairs sockets
started blowing! You can guess the rest more or less ... this armoured
cable came up into the kitchen and was just straight off the dishwasher
switch (of all things!) as a spur. Couldn't believe my eyes! Spend a good
hour or two working in torchlight unscrewing every damn socket around the
kitchen before I found it and disconnected it.

Oh and for all those who think it's a good idea to test dangerous AC stuff
with a little plastic "electrical" screwdriver - when I brought it down the
garden to test the outdoor cable (we only moved in last year and were told
it was dead btw) it caused the mushed cables at the end to arc and blew it
clean out of my hand in a giant shower of sparks (and plunged the house into
darkness again for about the 20th time!). Lucky to still have a hand (or
life for that matter with the amount of surface water everywhere from
continuously soaking the grass for hours) I picked up what was left of the
screwdriver - a distorted plastic handle with no metal coming out of it
anymore!

There might be a moral to the story and I'm sure it's something to do with
calling a qualified electrician when your lawn starts lighting up the night
sky ...!



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