ring circuit run at ceiling height

[sm_jamieson]

Part of a ring circuit has to be run at ceiling height and dropped down to the sockets, due to doors and openings being in the way. Is it usual to run the ring down and back up side-by-side to the sockets (using lots of cable), or put a junction box (available for inspection, not hidden of course) at the top and run a spur down to each double socket. You could use an awful lot of cable if you had to run a lot of sockets down from the ceiling. Cheers, Simon.

[Skipweasel]

That's how ours are done - at least downstair, where we have a concrete floor. Upstairs of course, they're a lot closer to the floor.

[Nutkey]

That's a lot of accessible junction boxes. Is the work to make them accessible worth it? Anyway, the cheapest 30A JB I see on TLC is 83p + VAT.

2.5mm T+E is 47p+VAT a metre if you buy it in 50m reels. Less for 100m. So using spurs saves you one drop - say 2.2m, which is 103p. Knock off the 83p for the JB and you just saved 20p. But now you have to make the JB accessible, you have extra hassle testing, and you can't add any spurs in the future.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

[ARWadsworth]

Yes, with a rule of thumb that the total length of the ring is no more than

106m.

or put a junction box (available for

I would not consider doing that.

Yep. But you can often incorporate the ring in the room above with the ring below to make cable savings

[John Rumm]

Yup, up and down to sockets is common. JBs used in this way would be a poor way of proceeding for a ring[1].

There is nothing to stop you dropping down to one, socket, and then romping straight across horizontally to the next in the cases where there is no door in the way.

Yup. Note that rings don't have to be split per floor. You could do left and right, front and back or any other pattern that suits you. Hence you can include the upstairs sockets in the same cable runs to maximise efficient use of cable.

[1] one technique sometimes seen is to have a radial running say round a loft acting as a backbone, and then a JB and single cable drop to each socket.