Live and Neutral have decided to swap

[stuartadair]

Strange things are afoot...

Over the past three weeks my main house trip has been going, getting more and more frequent.
I've put a friends tester on the sockets and some are showing as live/neutral reversed. I've unplugged all appliances and its still the same. Some of the sockets are registering as live even when turned off.

I could understand it if there had been work done or something had changed, but wires don't just swap themselves and there's been no work done at all and no new appliances plugged in.

I'll check the wiring behind each faceplate to make sure nothing has come loose in the coming days, and if I find nothing wrong will be calling an electrician in.

Question is though....What could cause a live/neutral reversal all of a sudden?

 

[EFLImpudence]

What could cause a live/neutral reversal all of a sudden?

Other than the supplier doing it at the intake - nothing.

Apart from that you will have to assume it has always been like it.

See if the socket is wired the wrong way round by the colours, if not - the next step is the consumer unit.

 

[Taylortwocities]

There are very basic tests that will check this out.
You'll need a two-probe voltage tester like this

Or a multimeter. The tests will mean taking the cover off the consumer unit with the power still on.
If you do not have the test equipment, and the knowledge of how to do the tests safely, then you really must get an electrician to check it out, and very soon!

Some of the sockets are registering as live even when turned off.

If the sockets are single pole then this is a sign that the line and neutral are switched, somewhere.....

 

[endecotp]

Some of the sockets are registering as live even when turned off.

What do they show if
(a) that circuit is turned off at the consumer unit, or
(b) the main switch is turned off at the consumer unit ?

 

[endecotp]

Over the past three weeks my main house trip has been going?

What trip, exactly? Do you mean an RCD? Post a photo of the consumer unit.

 

[Echo the husky]

Have you had your electric meter replaced recently?!

 

[deadshort]

Hi if you say "some" are showing reverse polarity, that rules out the supply to the property which would be a major concern.

Are all the sockets which are r p on the same circuit ?

ds

 

[333rocky333]

dodgy neutral and single pole sockets, an appliance plugged in proberly feeding back on the neutral

 

[Spark123]

Could be along the lines of a high resistance earth and a L-E fault, the high resistance being from a fault or a TT system (with RCD issues). Either way, it needs a spark to check it out.

 

[securespark]

I can't remember the exact circs, but on a job once, I got RP on socket on a circuit when a certain FCU on a different circuit was switched on. Turned out to be a convoluted fault somewhere....

 

[foxhole]

Once got a shock from a friends wiring, turned out the supply to her and a neighbour had live and neutral reversed out in the road , blew both their TVs and a microwave.

 

[ericmark]

In the UK we have non reversible plugs and sockets, but that's not the case with rest of Europe and all equipment should be designed for all of Europe so everything should work even if the line and neutral are swapped.

However the fuse will be on the wrong wire, and single pole switches will not switch off sockets. So yes it does need correcting. I found one house where two batches of sockets had the line and neutral on opposite sides, the person wiring had clearly wired a box with line on left, then simply not checked second box with line on right. The simple EZ150 plug in tester will highlight most faults of this type, but faults like this can be hard to find. What happens is some one finds the fault and swaps two wires, but not where they were wrong, so when wrong wires are corrected then every socket corrected becomes wrong again.

So it is often a slow process checking first the consumer unit, then slowly checking every socket. I had mothers house re-wired, the remit was every old socket not connected should be removed, however there were around 6 sockets found to be dead, clearly guy testing did not check every socket.