cooker circuit breaker

hellraiser · 15 Nov 2004

I have a new cooker. 6 months ago had it installed. Then it kept tripping. It has gone worse now, so I have left breaker off, and cannot use my cooker. I had an electrician in, he tested the wires, and said I have a very small leakage somewhere. He advised me to get a 40 wirlex breaker, as he said the 32 one is very sensitve for it. Will this not just be covering over the problem, as obviously I have a leakage to earth. Can someone please help me with this, before I cook the christmas Turkey. Thanks again Lisa

securespark · 15 Nov 2004

What kind of leakage did he say it was?

Is the appliance damp?

Is it tripping the MCB or the RCD?

Have you contacted the retailer? Having sold you the goods, they are responsible for any repair or replacement necessary.

ban-all-sheds · 15 Nov 2004

What is tripping - is it the MCB for the cooker circuit, or an RCD?

Or is the cooker circuit on an RCBO?

It's just that if you have a slight earth leakage (not uncommon with cookers), this will not trip an MCB, but it will trip an RCBO, or the RCD protecting that circuit.

But in that case, swapping it to a 40A device will not solve anything - you'll still have an earth fault, and the RCD, or a 40A RCBO will still trip.

If it is an MCB which is tripping, then this has nothing to do with a very small earth leakage - to put it in perspective, it takes literally more than a thousand times as much current to trip your MCB than the fault current needed to trip an RCD or RCBO.

So I'm not sure that the electrician's advice makes sense....

What is the rating of the cooker, and what is the size of the cable?

Does it trip when any part of it is turned on, or when all of it is in use?

Have you recently added anything else to the circuit, or is there a socket on the control unit into which you plug another appliance?

Have you recently put up any shelves etc in the vicinity of the cable that supplies the cooker?

Did the electrician test the cooker and the cable separately?

ban-all-sheds · 15 Nov 2004

hellraiser · 15 Nov 2004

Thanks very much for your help on this topic. I am not well up on electrics,and all I know is that he did not test the cooker, he just tested the wires in the cooker socket which showed the small leakage, it trips the red switch in the fuse box, I switch it back on, it does not go for a while then blows again. I did not think that having a 40 a would make much difference. The electrician said that these breakers are very sensitive and will pick up anything. But it still does not solve the problem of the leakage. All around my house the sockets etc were tested, and they came up as reading neutral, which really worries me. A builder who lived here before we bought this house did a bit of diy, and looks like he may have bottched up the witring somehow.No shelves have been fitted near the main wire either

Anyone know any cheap sparkys in oldham

Thanks again to all.

ban-all-sheds · 15 Nov 2004

hellraiser said:
it trips the red switch in the fuse box

Do you mean the main switch, or one of them , which controls either all of the circuits, or a group of them?

hellraiser · 15 Nov 2004

Hi again, there are other switches in the box, it just keeps tripping the cooker one on its own lisa

ryanj · 15 Nov 2004

What the hell is a lisa?

ban-all-sheds · 15 Nov 2004

Is it an MCB, or an RCBO (does it have a test button, as well as the up/down on/off switch rocker?)

hellraiser · 16 Nov 2004

ryanj said:
What the hell is a lisa?

What do you think it is? missed a comma out, hell the world is sad.

IanDB · 17 Nov 2004

Lisa, have you any idea what these guy are talking about? It's all very well throwing terminology like MCB, RCBO etc, etc but does this mean anything to you?

an RCBO (does it have a test button, as well as the up/down on/off switch rocker?)

Does the cooker switch have a test button on it? The reason behind this is that if it's an RCBO (residual current circuit breaker with over current protection) it has two functions. One is to protect against the cooker drawing too much current in case of an overload, the second is to detect a leakage between live and earth as happens when you touch the live parts.

An MCB (main circuit breaker) just provides overload protection.

If there is a leakage current in the cooker it will trip an RCBO.

Here's a typical MCB:

Here's an RCBO:

Does this help?

JerryD · 17 Nov 2004

IanDB said:
An MCB (main circuit breaker) just provides overload protection.

......................and short circuit protection!!

lyncon · 7 Feb 2014

Thankyou this has actually help my question aswell as i was wondering where i would find the circuit box and tell the w for the cooker mine says 240w

Taylortwocities · 7 Feb 2014

OK. So go and start a nice new topic of your own, instead of digging up this 10 year old one.

Do that and someone might answer your question.

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cooker circuit breaker

ryanj

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