Extra sockets and anothe fuse box

[AS]

Please excuse all my questions - i am being a bit cauctious and want to get everything staright in my head and mapped out before we get the electrician in.

I spent ages crawling around the house /lifting boards etc and now have a full map of our ring main sockets - it seems there are 2 rings - on for the east side of the house(upstairs+downstairs) and one for the west side (upstairs and downstairs).There is also one single socket that seems to go directly to the meter and isn't a spur or on the ring. I want to add about 4-5 new double sockets into each ring main ( no spurs) and have mapped this all out. it seems there is no socket number restriction but rather a floor area /cable meterage restriction - what are these and if my rooms are approx 5 m x 4m on top of each other should there be a problem?

secondly, An extension (now dining room) in our house used to be a shop and this room has it's own fuse box. none of the sockets in this room seem to be involved in the above mentioned ring mains and therefore i assume that the fuse box in this room deals directly with this extension room (old shop). We aren't having any changes made to any sockets/elecs in this room but i just wondered how this seperate fusebox ties in with the existing fuse box/meter in the rest of the house. Is this set up common.

 

[plugwash]

direct to the meter?!

lets see some photos of this setup

as for the second consumer unit you need to find out where it is fed from (it could be a totally seperate supply from the electricity supplier but i would have expected you to know from the billing if this was the case)

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Get a fan heater, or something, and plug it in in the dining room.

Turn off the main switch on your CU.

If the heater works and your meter doesn't show any consumption, keep stum, as you're getting free electricity....

 

[andy]

If the heater works and your meter doesn't show any consumption, keep stum, as you're getting free electricity....

i wudnt mind some of that

 

[AS]

Actually the one single socket that goes direct to the mains - we have storage heaters that seem to be monitered by a seperate meter
THTC(**P) could this be a single socket going to the storage heater section. Do you get a cheap rate socket with THTC?

 

[plugwash]

you wouldn't normally put a socket on the oof peak section but it could be where a storage heater used to be

if it was then it would only be on some of the time though

 

[ban-all-sheds]

i wudnt mind some of that

Are there any overhead supplies nearby?

Do you have any long tails, and a window hook? (One with an insulated handle would be best....)

 

[plugwash]

just make sure they are vertically seperated and not horizontally seperated

unless you want 11KV down your cable that is