Earth leakage trips with various appliances

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About fifteen years ago the overhead live cable to my house came down during a heavy snowstorm. The repair men appeared after a couple of days at 8pm but couldn't replace the cable because of obstruction from tree branches. They repurposed the earth wire as a live so I've only got incoming live and neutral wires. The next day a Condor F1-E6 earth leakage trip was fitted along with an earth cable connected to a ground spike.

All was well apart from the trip being more sensitive than I would have liked. I have RCD sockets in the garage and a plug-in Belkin RCD but if I press the test buttons on any of those it causes the ELCB to trip, maybe because it's adjacent to the power source. Not a big deal though.

For the last three weeks the ELCB has tripped several times with a variety of appliances. It has happened several times when I've just switched on the socket supplying my PC. The PSU is a good quality OCZ unit, their first to use technology acquired from their takeover of Seasonic. It draws a small current for self-test. The first time this happened, I switched off that socket and reset the ELCB, switched the socket back on and started the PC as normal. I swapped the PC's plug to another socket in case there was an arcing issue but the fault recurred after a couple of days.

It has also happened when I use my Dyson DC04 vacuum cleaner. Sometimes the trip goes off as soon as I press the vacuum's on switch, sometimes it works fine but goes off in use as did the PC on one occasion. I've fitted a new motor which seems fine but I think I'm chasing a random fault. This morning it went off just as the immersion heater timer was scheduled to cut in. I pulled the fuse but the trip refused to reset until I'd unplugged the fridge freezer, then after several attempts it relented and my fridge freezer and immersion heater are working normally. I have a 7.2KW electric shower which also now activates the trip unless used on the Eco setting.

This seemed like a good time to ditch the ELCB and fit a split load consumer unit in place of the ancient Wylex 8-way fusebox. It was surprisingly hard to find an electrician in my area to do this and the one who eventually appeared seems reluctant to fit a consumer unit because it would make things worse, although I can't imagine what could be worse. On his first visit he suspected a neutral to earth leak on the shower's 'high' setting so the shower fuse was experimentally removed. This seemed to do the trick for a day or so and I was just about to order a new shower when the juice went off again.

I removed the remaining fuses from the fusebox and replaced them systematically. With only one fuse connected at a time I noticed trips on three circuits even though nothing was switched on. After several minutes the faults disappeared and I was able to refit a minimum number of fuses to power lights, immersion heater and four radial sockets from which I ran essential appliances via extension cables. That setup worked fine for four days until this morning.

Probably clutching at straws, I've renewed an old brown bakelite socket in one of the kitchen cupboards and I'll fit a new exterior light PIR later today. I'm waiting for a new ceiling switch (50A Crabtree) for the shower supply as I found during testing that the existing one is set in the 'on' position. Maybe just a mechanical failure but I'll know more when I remove it.

Does any of that point to an area that might be worth testing further? My first thought was to ditch the ELCB and ancient fusebox, if only to eliminate them. The electrician told me I'd need some (as yet unspecified) upgraded component in the consumer unit to compensate for the removal of the ELCB, given that I don't have a normal earth wire. Should I ask my power supplier to replace the missing overhead wire?
 
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Seems to me that if the DNO fitted this as a temporary repair it is still their responsibility to maintain/repair/remove it.
So I would suggest your first point of call would be to their 24/7 number for them to rectify this work that should never have been left like this for more than a few days.
 
Sure :)
 

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Looking at some of your examples it seems in every case you had left the neutral connected so an intermittent N-E fault on any of them circuits could still cause the RCD to trip
 
Yes that unit is of a type that would be connected by a DNO so is not of a type you should even be trying to find a fault on, it is their responsibility
 
See how it is when you have replaced the exterior light.

Are there any other exterior items that may be wet?
 
Thanks guys! I've just got off the phone to SWALEC/Western Power and they are sending someone round, maybe today with luck. Still waiting for the rain to stop before I fit the new PIR. There's double RCD socket and a fluorescent light in the garage which I'll check but the fault has occurred when their fuses were removed. The N-E leak theory looks good if I can get the electrician to test that on his next visit; he had a big job booked for this week.
 
If SWALEC are accepting responsibility for the equipment, why are you still talking about investigating the fault?

If it is on their equipment you need to have no further involvent with it, and could infact be breaking the law to do so
 
They haven't accepted responsibility yet but I've just had a call from the engineer to say he's on his way so should have a better idea soon. This is all new to me as the electrician said that everything after the meter was my responsibility, which seemed a bit unfair with regard to SWALEC's fitting of the ELCB.
 
It is an accepted national option to do a temporary repair in this way, but only for a short time of 2 or 3 days, after which a permanent repair must be done. It looks as if this has been one that has got missed by the DNO to get the permanent repair done, and others not to know that such things are done, "to keep the lights on"
 
The incoming ELCB should be 100mA. Its for protecting appliances with L-E faults not personal protection. These should be on a 30 mA ELCB circuit. When I first converted my house to an ELCB, found a N-E short in a 13 A socket. A round headed screw had pierced the neutral insulation. The other faults was a overtemperature thermostat in the tumble drier. Tiny little thing looked OK, just a bit grubby, I cleaned it up with meths and it looked the same but worked OK. Other problems a few trips of the 30 mA ELCB over the years , this was caused by a faulty tap changer on our local mains when the factory estate closed down. Fitting a 100 mA ELCB cured . The final and most curious problem was that one arm of a metal chandelier has moisture inside which tracked across to the back of the bayonet fitting. No other moisture seen anywhere else ????
ELCBs can be tripped by the most obscure faults!
Frank
 
It is for personal protection so it must be 30mA.
Not by first intent, surely? We are told that the DNO installed it as a 'temporary' measure when they 'temporarily' (15 years ago) TTd the installation, I presume they therefore installed it primarily to give protection against L-E faults.

Kind Regards, John
 

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