I have a few days off and what happens - downstairs ring keeps tripping out!
Fortunately, my brother is a qualified electrician,
unfortunately he lives 100 miles away
First thing we established is that he's coming down soon to install a new consumer unit as it's got the old style breakers and whoever installed it clearly didn't have a tidy mind!
So, today I've been investigating the tripping. I've borrowed a Fluke 1654 muti-function tester and an insulation test inicates that there's a short somewhere on the ring. Following my bro's instructions, I split the ring at the sockets furthest from the consumer unit and tested each half - by reconnecting the half that tests OK the theory is that we should get a non-tripping spur with about half of the 14 sockets on the ring working - sod's law strikes again, we got three but at least they include the kettle and the microwave.
For now I'll leave it alone for the evening just to ensure there's no more tripping. Tomorrow I'll start working on testing the isolated section of the ring, with the short, to try and narrow down where it is and, hopefully, get some more sockets functioning.
So much for a few days of relaxation!