Testing ring circuit

[John Greenwood]

Hello,

After finally finishing my new kitchen circuit I would like to check if the continuity of live, neutral and earth to determine if they do indeed complete a ring.

Searching on Google I have discovered continuity testing but with this it seems you need to test each stage separately.

What I would like to do is to simply remove one socket cover, disconnect the wires and test that each wire completes a ring.

Is this possible, if so what type of kit do I need to perform this. A Screwfix link would be excellent!

Thanks,

John

[BigWallop]

Go to your Consumer Unit (main fuse box) and switch it off. Remove the two red insulated cables from the breaker and connect your meter over them. Set the meter to read the Ohms ranges and it you should have a reading of between 3 and 10 Ohms depending on the length of the cables in the ring. Repeat this for the black insulated cables and the earth connecting centres and you should find out if all sockets are connected together.

If you don't get a drop in the Ohms range on any of these test, then you have a break somewhere in the circuit and you'll need to test from each socket to the next to find the break.

Hope this helps a bit.

[BigWallop]

Yes, this one is fine to do the tests you need to do. Remember to switch OFF at the main switch before removing any of the cables from the fuses / breakers, and remember that the big thick grey cables coming from the electric meter are always live in the fuse box, so DON'T let anything touch them.

[Dave Plowman]

It would, although is quite expensive if all you need is a basic DVM. Maplin sell ones which will do this job for only a few pounds.

Also, if you go to eBay 'Test Equipment' you'll find a new DVM on offer that also does temperature, which is very useful for balancing central heating or checking ovens etc. They sell for about 15 quid, and IMHO are good value.

[John Greenwood]

Thanks Big Wallop

[Christian McArdle]

actually good enough for the regs. You'd need something more like:

meters will apply up to 200mA to give a much more reliable indication of resistance and will give 2 decimal places of ohms. Obviously, this isn't the sort of price range you're looking for to test one circuit. To fully test a circuit, you need one of these (which also does high voltage leakage testing) an earth loop impedence tester and an RCD tester.

I wouldn't be surprised if you can hire from HSS, or you can just use a multimeter and hope, but you won't have complied with the regulations. Last I looked, the going rate on eBay was 50-100 for each digital meter.

Christian.

[Owain]

"John Greenwood" wrote | After finally finishing my new kitchen circuit I would like to check if the | continuity of live, neutral and earth to determine if they do indeed | complete a ring. | Searching on Google I have discovered continuity testing but with this it | seems you need to test each stage separately. | What I would like to do is to simply remove one socket cover, disconnect the | wires and test that each wire completes a ring.

As well as testing for ring continuity you have to check for inadvertent bridging of the ring.

a procedure

Owain