Reverse Polarity Mains Socket -- How Dangerous?

Andrew Thelwell · 2006-11-26T18:50:10+00:00

Hi,Note: This post is talking about UK (220-240V mains supply)My girlfriend and I recently moved into our newly-purchased house. Wewanted to get the electric meter changed but when the guy came out todo so, he reported a live reading on the neutral block in our meterbox. This was potentially dangerous, he said, and he called out themains engineers. They investigated and couldn't replicate the problem.They asked if we'd experienced any problems in the house and we hadn't.Since then we've had three occurrences of the RCDs in our fuse boxtripping. I today bought a standard socket tester and tested everysocket in the house. I've found the culprit to be the mains outlet inour spare bedroom, which appears to be incorrectly wired, showing alive/neutral reverse on the tester.My questions, then...1) Would this explain both the apparent live neutral reading in ourmain meter box and the tripping of the RCDs? I always thought RCDs wereonly concerned with earthing faults, not live/neutral reverse polaritytype problems2) I've been using the sockets in that room with no real probles apartfrom the trips. All equipment (TV, XBox, amplifier, phone charger) haveworked OK thus far. Is the socket likely to be causing any harm?3) Is this potentially dangerous?4) Is getting this fixed a big (and ergo, expensive) job?Your help would be much appreciated as I've had surprising difficultfinding any info about this on the web.Many thanksAndy