Everything in consumer unit off, still getting power

Since moving into our house we've noticed some strange things with the electrics but today I decided I would be useful and try and figure out which breaker on the consumer unit controlled which sockets / lights in the house. My first step was to turn everything off, literally every single switch in the consumer unit including all main switches however we still have 2 sockets which still have power (at opposite corners of the house, one at the front door and the other at the back corner of the back bedroom). What could be the potential causes, could it just be a faulty breaker and if so, should the main switches not then override? The meter light still flashes so the power is definitely going through there.

someone been adding sockets to the neighbours supply? or a second DB youve not turned off

I found that when doing an eicr of an office.  One double socket would not turn off.  It turned out the office had been sub divided and we concluded that one socket was left being fed from the office next door, but they would not allow access to investigate, so they came to a gentlemans agreement not to use that socket.

When you say your sockets are "on" what are you testing them with?  Have you plugged a real load in to determine that they will power a proper load?

Is there more than one consumer unit / fuse box?  A common scenario is old redundant storage heater points re purposed as additional sockets, often still connected to a re configured second fuse box that used to power the off peak circuits.

ProDave said:

I found that when doing an eicr of an office.  One double socket would not turn off.  It turned out the office had been sub divided and we concluded that one socket was left being fed from the office next door, but they would not allow access to investigate, so they came to a gentlemans agreement not to use that socket.

When you say your sockets are "on" what are you testing them with?  Have you plugged a real load in to determine that they will power a proper load?

Is there more than one consumer unit / fuse box?  A common scenario is old redundant storage heater points re purposed as additional sockets, often still connected to a re configured second fuse box that used to power the off peak circuits.

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Thanks Dave, the storage heaters were the cause! We'd plugged a kettle in and it was working no problem so was definitely just getting a proper supply. Thanks for getting me sorted, much appreciated. One more strange house thing ticked off...

andrewmacp said:

Thanks Dave, the storage heaters were the cause! We'd plugged a kettle in and it was working no problem so was definitely just getting a proper supply. Thanks for getting me sorted, much appreciated. One more strange house thing ticked off...

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Hum ......... that doesn't make sense!

I’m guessing that the storage heaters no longer exist nor does the E7 metering, I suspect a replaced or reused E7, meter has probably been swapped at some point and is on same rate 24/7??

Sharpend said:

I’m guessing that the storage heaters no longer exist nor does the E7 metering, I suspect a replaced or reused E7, meter has probably been swapped at some point and is on same rate 24/7??

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That's what I thought but the OP said he'd switched off the fuseboard.

Murdoch said:

That's what I thought but the OP said he'd switched off the fuseboard.

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which is why i said there was probably a 2nd one that wasnt switched off

Andy™ said:

which is why i said there was probably a 2nd one that wasn't switched off

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Agreed - be nice if the OP confirmed this though