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As far as I know you need the appropriate enclosure for the connections to be considered maintenance-free.

I‘d think neutral fault somewhere on the affected RCD. Neutral on the wrong bar would trip both RCDs. A faulty hoover seems unlikely as they‘re pretty much all double insulated.

What‘s the point of the FCU anyway if the whole circuit is protected by a B16?

The instructions clearly say solid conductors (class 1) only, so you‘re absolutely correct.

Industrial production, mostly robotised, has gotten so cheap that paying an actual person to repair something is shockingly often more expensive than buying a new item. In the past I was quoted a 45 Euro inspection fee (30 minutes of labour) for a Bosch SDS drill that cost 70 Euros new. At that...

OP writes about a solar battery, which suggests an off-grid inverter to me. It might not have anything connected to the earth terminal (IT supply) or it could create its own TN-S system (Victron inverters do).

Looks like the yellow wire links the neutral terminals of the two meters but I could be wrong.

As plugwash said, large parts of Europe used non-earthed sockets in dry rooms until fairly recent times, e.g. the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Finland. In these countries it was and partly still is considered an acceptable upgrade to fit an RCD without adding CPCs to all circuits. In other...

I‘d read 415.1.2 as „if there are no CPCs an RCD is not enough to make the installation comply“. Apparently in some countries that used to be an option. It’s definitely not a UK-specific reg, I‘ve seen it elsewhere too.

Sometimes a fridge or freezer can be enough to trip an RCD with an N-E fault. Depending on the supply it doesn‘t take a lot of current to cause enough of an imbalance. My first experience with N-E faults was a rural TT supply with a 100 mA RCD from the late 70s and occasionally during heavy...

All German plugs have the same pin spacing and length, including the Euro plug. Only the diametre is different, 4 mm for Euro and ancient 6 A plugs (only designed for class 0 appliances, won‘t fit modern sockets) and 4.8 mm for all others. That non-earthed plug is essentially the common ancestor...

Nope, even a 1920s motor that spent pretty much the last 60-odd years sitting unused in a basement along with original VIR cables came in at 150k.

As I said, I pulled the extension lead off the fence 15 years ago and have been using it for various tasks around the house ever since. I‘m definitely aware of the fact that an IR of, say, 100 kOhm would be very much unsatisfactory but still far from tripping a 30 mA RCD. That’s why I wrote...

I didn‘t see any reason to do an IR test since the outer sheath was in such perfect condition but might test next time I get there out of sheer curiosity. Can’t be terrible because it didn‘t trip a recently tested 30 mA RCD but still interesting to know the actual IR value.

As I said, even loosely draped (I can’t remember any details but the lead exited an old attached brick shed under the eaves, was somehow held up along the top of a timber gate but not attached to the gate itself and then ran along a brick boundary wall, mostly held in place by ivy) the flex was...

When my parents bought their house in 2009 I found an extension lead (H05VV-F) strung along the fence to power a garden room, possibly since 1989. It was still in great condition so I pulled it from the fence and kept using it.

Frankly, in this case the repair wasn‘t that much worse than the original installation.

For 0.75 mm2 flex an 8 mm bit should be well enough.

„Naught conductor“ sounds like a good old dictionary translation of the German „Nullleiter“. The official term these days is „Neutrallleiter“ but most people still use the older term.

The one thing I do find interesting is that all European countries I‘m aware of have a minimum requirement of 1.5 mm2 for mechanical strength in fixed installations (except control circuits). The UK and Ireland are the only exceptions as far as I know.