circut bReakers (or RCD tripping)

[kes42]

Just recently my RCD kept tripping when British Gas came out the first time they said the RCD was faulty, they would send someone out to fix it, they then said the RCD was ok it was the tumble dryer and not to use it. However when he left it happened again this time they said it was the electric oven as it tripped when it heated up, so i was advised by British Gas to have the oven checked. I have had the tumble and oven done. i was also advised that the sockets to my conservatory was on a 32amp which is wrong, due to the wire being larger !!! he said i would be able to put them on a 20 amp,so i have changed it to a 20 amp but it trips the rcd off and doesn't work. They worked ok when they was on a 32 amp.
I have turned off my garage flouresent lights has they keep tripping the RCD aswell
Please advise what to do with the amps

 

[ricicle]

A cable cannot be too large for an MCB. It can be required to be larger for installation parameters.
The only disadvantages to larger cables than normally required are cost and termination problems.

The size of MCB will not affect the operation of an RCD due to faults on the circuit.

 

[Taylortwocities]

I hope that are not paying/have not paid British Gas for this non-service.!

Is this some sort of maintenance contract?

Did they carry out any sort of testing, or did they walk round the house and point at appliances and say its the RCD, no maybe its the tumble dryer, no maybe its the oven?

How were the RCD, tumble and oven "tested"?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Due to a tripping switch problem a British gas engineer (I have a homecare contract) came over and disconnected a socket, a lamp, and pond switch all in the back garden. He said the wires in these are too thin, and are potential fire hazards.

Just recently my RCD kept tripping when British Gas came out the first time they said the RCD was faulty, they would send someone out to fix it, they then said the RCD was ok it was the tumble dryer and not to use it. However when he left it happened again this time they said it was the electric oven as it tripped when it heated up, so i was advised by British Gas to have the oven checked. I have had the tumble and oven done. i was also advised that the sockets to my conservatory was on a 32amp which is wrong, due to the wire being larger !!! he said i would be able to put them on a 20 amp,so i have changed it to a 20 amp but it trips the rcd off and doesn't work. They worked ok when they was on a 32 amp.
I have turned off my garage flouresent lights has they keep tripping the RCD aswell

British Gas ... electrical problems ... gas ... electrical ...

Please advise what to do with the amps

Get a proper electrician to take a look, not some knuckle-dragger from a gas company.

 

[ericmark]

This is a wild guess but I think you have a neutral earth fault.
What happens is when very little current is drawn very little leakage goes from neutral to earth but as more current is drawn by any appliance then the leakage will increase to a point where the RCD trips.

These faults are very hard to locate but simply switching items off as:-
1) The switch often does not switch neutral.
2) The item which causes the RCD to trip may not be the faulty one.

If I was looking for the fault I would switch off mains and then measure with meters earth to neutral and if there was a low insulation reading then start unplugging and disconnecting until faulty unit was found. You note with no power switched on as when power is switched on the neutral is automatically connected to earth so not useful tests can be made. It also needs a special meter that uses 500 volt to test the insulation with.

So did British Gas send an electrician or did they send a semi-skilled guy. And did they test with power on or power off. If they tested with power on then they may with luck find the fault but more by luck than good judgement. I would think we all would start by the guess process but we would not say in the main anything is faulty without testing. There are exceptions. Frost free freezers, washing machines etc have timers and it may only cause a fault on a certain point in it's cycle. With these items the easy way is to use a 10ma RCD plugged in like This and at £13 they are cheap enough and it is possible by moving to from appliance to appliance you will find the fault but still hit and miss in some ways and I would use insulation tester first and only use the 10ma RCD if unable to find with insulation tester.

 

[kes42]

I hope that are not paying/have not paid British Gas for this non-service.!

Is this some sort of maintenance contract?

Did they carry out any sort of testing, or did they walk round the house and point at appliances and say its the RCD, no maybe its the tumble dryer, no maybe its the oven?

How were the RCD, tumble and oven "tested"?

Hi
yes it is a homecare agreement
the 1st man tested the RCD who said it was faulty, the next man said he wasn;t a proper electrican he does the appliances and the RCD was not faulty he tested the plug on the tumble and said it was faulty and i shouldn;t have any probems now, when he left i warmed up the oven when it reached the temp it tripped off the RCD, so i called them back the man tested the RCD and all the sockets in the house but all ok so we unplugged everything except the electric fan oven and again when it reached temp it knocked off the trip so i was told to get that fixed, he also said the sockets in the conservatory was on a 32 amp and i needed to get the wiring changed as it is the wrong cable for it but some electricans might just change it to a 20 amp so i have bought a 20 amp changed it as soon as i use a plug in the conservatiory it tripps the RCD. In the garage we have flouresent lights i have turned these off as after we had the tumble and oven fixed the only time the RCD tripped was when we switched the lights on but the lights stayed on !!!!

 

[Taylortwocities]

as i use a plug in the conservatiory it tripps the RCD. In the garage we have flouresent lights i have turned these off as after we had the tumble and oven fixed the only time the RCD tripped was when we switched the lights on but the lights stayed on !!!!

It sounds like the gas men just get paid per visit and don't know squat.

It sounds like a neutral on the CB you changed to 20A is in the wrong place. You should not have needed to move the neutral wire if you were just changing the CB.
Can you take the cover off the consumer unit and post a good quality photo on here? Use macro setting or we wont be able to see the detail.

A proper electrician should be able to sort this out pretty quickly.

 

[kes42]

as i use a plug in the conservatiory it tripps the RCD. In the garage we have flouresent lights i have turned these off as after we had the tumble and oven fixed the only time the RCD tripped was when we switched the lights on but the lights stayed on !!!!

It sounds like the gas men just get paid per visit and don't know squat.

It sounds like a neutral on the CB you changed to 20A is in the wrong place. You should not have needed to move the neutral wire if you were just changing the CB.
Can you take the cover off the consumer unit and post a good quality photo on here? Use macro setting or we wont be able to see the detail.

A proper electrician should be able to sort this out pretty quickly.

i did change the 32 amp to a 20 amp for the conservatory but it is not working now should it be a 20 amp or should i change it back to 32 amp as it worked ok before

 

[JohnD]

he means you might have connected it wrong, that's why he asked you to take the photo etc

 

[kes42]

have taken photo and added not sure if done it correctly :

moderator: here it is

Untitled

• kes42
• 4 Sep 2010
• 2

 

[rebuke]

Can you get a shot that shows the whole board at all - in particular where all the neutral wires go...

First thing to mention though is the butt crimps (the blue things) that have presumably been put in at some stage to extend some wires have been very poorly done, given bare copper is visible!

Realistically I suspect your best bet is going to be to get a proper electrician in (not homeserve as they appear to be useless from what you've said) to figure out what's going on - perhaps then send his bill to homeserve?

 

[securespark]

It appears the 20A breaker may be on the other side of the board to the 32A one it was on. Are you sure the neutral for the 20A circuit is in the correct busbar?

Or did you remove the 32A one and fit a 20 in place of it?

 

[kes42]

It appears the 20A breaker may be on the other side of the board to the 32A one it was on. Are you sure the neutral for the 20A circuit is in the correct busbar?

Or did you remove the 32A one and fit a 20 in place of it?

number 7 is the conservatory and number 8 is the house sockets, i just took the 32 amp out of number 7 and replaced it with the 20 amp

 

[Taylortwocities]

The gas man is correct about one thing though. It should not be a 32A MCB as it is a radial circuit (only on conductor in the cb).

Just to confirm, kes. When you replaced the 32A cb you only took the red wire out of the 32A one and put it into the 20A one? Pls confirm that you changed no other wires and did not change the cb's position in the board?

 

[kes42]

hi
yes all i did was pull the clip up at the back, unscrew both screws moved the red wire took out the 32 amp put 20 amp in and put red wire in and did screws back up push clip down. Itdid work once so i though great it is ok when to use socket again no working now