Any electricians?

[FlemishDuck]

Noticed a burning smell in kitchen this morning. Noticed this evening it was coming from a double socket. There was a small amount of smoke coming from the socket.
So I switched off the electricity, removed the screws and disconnected the socket.. the brown wire had burnt its plastic covering and had burnt into the socket at its connection burning the casing and even the screw a little.so the wires are all loose and I pushed them into the wall and covered with tape til I get a new socket fitted.
Anyway strangely none of the other sockets in that corner of the kitchen now work, and none of the trip switches are down in the hall.
Anyone any idea why this is the case? And why would the socket have burnt up?

Not an electrician specificly but:

The fact that the isolation burned of the wire afaik implies that the cable inside reached a temperature far higher than it is made to cope with. I presume that this is 1.5mm cable thickness, and that maybe the device attached to it should have been wired with 2.5mm cable.

Typicly home devices (in Belgium atleast) vary between 230 volts and 400 volts (unless using adapters), typicly certain devices in the kitched meant for cooking need to be connected to 400 volts, these 400 volt devices draw more electricity which burdens the cable more and tyicly one uses 2.5 mm cable for this while for things like lighting 230 volts is used.

So how can this kill of other plugs?

one way could be that you killed the parrallel connection. i presume that on each connection point 2 wires were attached, for exapmple 2 red wires (one going away left in the tube, the other going the right way) 2 blue wires and 2 green wires. In such a case, typicly the mounting point to which these 2 red cables would be connected would also act to provide a parrallel connection to the other sockets. My presumption is you broke the loop, that you have either 4 or 6 wires, sets of 2 of a color, and that connecting the cables with the same color will fix that issue. (well, if you still know the color knowing the isolation burned off)

The ring main fuse is there to protect the wiring of the circuit from overheating if you attempt to draw too much current. It should trip well before the wire gets hot enough to burn. I would certainly check the fuse, and if it has a test switch, check it.

Arguably it also depends on cable diameter right? You could certaintly connect way too thin cables on a 230 volts circuit and they would burn off their isolation, like say using 0.75mm cable that can only take up to 6 Amps for a 3000 watt device on 240v which would then draw 3000/240=12.5 Amps. The fuse wouldn't burn i guess, the cable though ...

 

[remember arthur mann]

The burning will highly likely be caused by either drawing too much current for the insulation, but not enough to trip the protection device circuit (fuse/RCD), or a break down of the insulation of the socket, which is less likely.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

My mum's kitchen...