Home DIY

Hardwired is where there is a thin fuse wire which burns out if there is to much current going through the cable i.e. someone is getting electricuted. MCB's Mini circuit Breakers trip if the same thing happens and have a switch on them so you can easily reset them. On top of this all new fuse boxes (which maybe a reason to change your fuse box) have RCD's Residual Current Devices which work on the difference between the feed and return current these are connected to banks of MCB's and are the ones that make the whole house go dark when they go.

Yes a sparky can certy someone elses work

Thanks Zebra, appreciated. Yes ours is hardwired unfortunately. We have plans to redo the back of the flat and the wiring needs sorting first so sounds like we'll have to bite the bullet.

Sparky I'm not an electrician but I do know that 2 gang sockets have one live and one neutral connection, so if one socket is working it'll probably be a broken socket.

Given a white 2 gang socket is £1.59 in Screwfix, I'd probably just turn off the power, take the socket out and reconnect the new one exactly as the old one was.

The turning off the power bit and the rewiring exactly as it was bit are pretty important by the way!