Advice on Burnt out wall socket

[Jock from the north]

Hi and thanks

To answer queries:

1) Board change was at my request as the extra circuits required, inc for an A/C unit, required a secondary fuse board under the stairs so made sense to replace with one big enough for all new circuits and leaving expansion for EV charging etc in the future.

2) Therefore new board was installed first and then EICR done once all works complete. I don’t think an EIC was done on the old board before removing as plan was always to change.

3) Socket definitely not disturbed during testing as the decorators caulk around the edge was undisturbed until I removed the socket.

4) inaccessible sockets are behind a wardrobe upstairs and on the 1st floor sockets ring final

5) I did move a lamp, on a Tp-link smart plug to this socket in between testing and the socket burning out - perhaps just very unlucky that plugging something new into this socket disturbed a partly loose connection?

Who fitted the socket originally

 

[Jock from the north]

Hi All

Wonder if someone can give me a little advice on a burnt out socket I’ve found today:

View attachment 118626

Socket has now been isolated at the fuse board and is on a small ring with only 2 other sockets and a 30amp rcd.

Items plugged into the socket were a tp-link smart plug, with a lamp connected to it, and a 4 way extension lead with an Amazon firestick and a wireless router bridge connected. So nothing pulling significant loads.

Socket was installed about 10 years ago and there haven’t been any issues, that I know about, since then. We’ve recently had an extension built which involved replacement the fuse board (new FuseBox model).

Whilst I suspect it most likely that the issue was the live connection in the outlet, which is what has burnt, it feels like potentially too much of a co-incidence that this has happened just a few weeks after the fuse board was changed having been fine for 10 years.

Could the new fuse board have caused something to change here which has resulted in the socket burning out?

Hi All

Wonder if someone can give me a little advice on a burnt out socket I’ve found today:

View attachment 118626

Socket has now been isolated at the fuse board and is on a small ring with only 2 other sockets and a 30amp rcd.

Items plugged into the socket were a tp-link smart plug, with a lamp connected to it, and a 4 way extension lead with an Amazon firestick and a wireless router bridge connected. So nothing pulling significant loads.

Socket was installed about 10 years ago and there haven’t been any issues, that I know about, since then. We’ve recently had an extension built which involved replacement the fuse board (new FuseBox model).

Whilst I suspect it most likely that the issue was the live connection in the outlet, which is what has burnt, it feels like potentially too much of a co-incidence that this has happened just a few weeks after the fuse board was changed having been fine for 10 years.

Could the new fuse board have caused something to change here which has resulted in the socket burning out?

Thanks in advance for any assistance

Alex

Blame the poor sparky who changed the fuse board even though he never fitted the socket .I would think that it would result in a high resistance on continuity test but seen as its a radial maybe they thought this was a normal reading or maybe they only performed a efli test at last socket.i would put my hat on the problem being who ever fitted socket ,what do you have plugged in further down the line ,I see its lounge sockets and a radial..

whatever was plugged in there will be damaged as well....

Coincidence... unless they removed that socket for some reason when they changed the board.
Its been a loose cable, and the heat caused by arccing.

You said it wasnt a big load... so im surprised its caused that much heat.

Im surprised you didnt smell it.

The back box appears to be only a 25mm deep one... A lot of decorative metal sockets ask for a 32mm.... maybe the live cables were close to the back wall of the box?

Did you mean a 32A, 30mA RCBO? or a 32A MCB with an upfront RCD mainswitch? (photo?)

Its a simple enough fix, but maybe beyond a DIYer.

I've seen a Japanese socket adapter with just a 7 watt led table lamp plugged in to it burn out the live pin in a single socket because it was so loose .it crackled when you touched the flex because it was such an ill fit

Thanks in advance for any assistance

Alex

30 amp rcd certinaly wouldn't trip.sorry based on the photo it's a 30 ma rcbo .

 

[Jock from the north]

Hi All

Wonder if someone can give me a little advice on a burnt out socket I’ve found today:

View attachment 118626

Socket has now been isolated at the fuse board and is on a small ring with only 2 other sockets and a 30amp rcd.

Items plugged into the socket were a tp-link smart plug, with a lamp connected to it, and a 4 way extension lead with an Amazon firestick and a wireless router bridge connected. So nothing pulling significant loads.

Socket was installed about 10 years ago and there haven’t been any issues, that I know about, since then. We’ve recently had an extension built which involved replacement the fuse board (new FuseBox model).

Whilst I suspect it most likely that the issue was the live connection in the outlet, which is what has burnt, it feels like potentially too much of a co-incidence that this has happened just a few weeks after the fuse board was changed having been fine for 10 years.

Could the new fuse board have caused something to change here which has resulted in the socket burning out?

Thanks in advance for any assistance

Alex

Was there rcd protection on that particular circuit previously

 

[ahoora100]

Hi All

Wonder if someone can give me a little advice on a burnt out socket I’ve found today:

View attachment 118626

Socket has now been isolated at the fuse board and is on a small ring with only 2 other sockets and a 30amp rcd.

Items plugged into the socket were a tp-link smart plug, with a lamp connected to it, and a 4 way extension lead with an Amazon firestick and a wireless router bridge connected. So nothing pulling significant loads.

Socket was installed about 10 years ago and there haven’t been any issues, that I know about, since then. We’ve recently had an extension built which involved replacement the fuse board (new FuseBox model).

Whilst I suspect it most likely that the issue was the live connection in the outlet, which is what has burnt, it feels like potentially too much of a co-incidence that this has happened just a few weeks after the fuse board was changed having been fine for 10 years.

Could the new fuse board have caused something to change here which has resulted in the socket burning out?

Thanks in advance for any assistance

Alex

Hey Alex!
It’s possible that the issue might be related to the new fuse board since it happened right after the change. Sometimes small changes in the electrical system can cause things that were fine before to start having issues. But like you mentioned, the socket was 10 years old with no issues. It could be that the live connection in the outlet burnt, but since this was a new setup, maybe something in the installation or connections changed, causing the socket to burn out. I’d recommend getting a professional electrician to check if everything is properly connected and there’s no issue with the new wiring.

 

[Teddy Lop]

In the picture of the socket, it looks like one of the neutrals may have been screwed in over the insulation. Therefore, the live may also have been done in a similar way, which would loosen over time, and then with higher resistance would melt the insulation and quickly become much looser.

Well spotted, and very true

Faults can have what I call a "cascade" effect, a mild fault - either a loose connection or a short, say from damaged insulation - can sit for years being a tiny little bit of a fault that goes un-noticed then as soon as a teeny increase occurs, perhaps just the gentle disturbance of plugging something in or using an extra appliance, it generates a tiny bit of heat, heat means more resistance, therefore more heat, more resistance etc and it quite quicky becomes a big fault.

Also notice decorating dust inside socket box, the very fine powdery dust from sanding filler by decorators too lazy to protect wiring accessories can get in all the switches, contacts etc and can cause things to not contact properly and arc.

Re: arc/heat faults and circuit protection; I remember reading something 20+ years ago where someone proposed fitting all sockets, switches etc with cheap thermal links between L-E, the idea being that if they were heated beyond their design spec they'd lower in resistance and pass enough current that the RCD would trip. Guess nothing came of it...