Hi all
Looking for a bit of advise. Basically each room we have upstairs has one plug socket in it. My mrs wants another in our room. I have googled for help but seems to be a bit scarce other than the yes you can do it attitude but i would love to know from a proper electrician if its possible.
Is it ok to wire another socket from an existing socket? Obviously the floor boards would be up and a proper job done. If this is possible how many can your wire in? Can you daisy chain another two of the original one or is it best to leave alone. I did suggest an extension but she wants it doing properly and not loose a socket that the extension plugs into.
Thanks in advance for your help
Damian
Hello Damian, welcome to the mad house.....
The bit of your question about how many can you wire in, is actually a bit more complicated than may first appear...
and without more information it is impossible to anyone on here to categorically say yes or no in relation to your house.
I will try and illustrate as follows:-
you need to know the full composition and condition of the existing circuits before it can be decide how safe it is to extend or not.
A circuit has a fuse (in the fuse box) which can allow a max amount of power down a cable.
A cable has a physical size (diameter of conductors) that affects how much power it can carry.
Both the fuse and the cable size affect how long a circuit can be. (e.g. how far is the furthest point from the fuse box.)
{ There are some other more complicated bits relating to the incoming supply and the type of earthing to the property that also need to be considered but we shall assume they are ok at the moment }
The physical cable has insulation, usually PVC on modern circuits, (older wiring may be rubber which is beyond its reasonable working life), which gradually deteriorates over time and usage.
more power + older age = more deterioration.
It is hard to see the deterioration of PVC cables visually. A thing called an insulation resistance test can confirm how good or bad this is.
So..
providing your fusing, cable size and insulation resistance is good, then you can probably extend your circuits with the new sockets you want.
But, If you don't verify these bit and just extend hoping its ok there is a risk of overload / fire / shock etc..
An analogy could be..
I have a bucket in front of me with some water in it...
I ask you how much more water I can put into the bucket
You need to know the capacity of the bucket, and how many litres are already in there,
before you can tell me how many more litres I can pour in..
If I just guess and pour some in...
It may be well within the capacity of the bucket, or it may be too much for the capacity of the bucket...
In the one case everything works fine no spills,
In the other case the bucket overflows and we have a spillage accident to deal with.
Hope that sort of makes sence...
You need the existing installation checked and tested before any accurate advice of what you can or cant extend safely.
Guinness