Electricity Tripping Out

[MattMunro65]

I don't know much about electrics and generally avoid, so sorry if this is a bad description.

The junction box (white box on the wall with all the trip switches) keeps tripping. As in, not individual switches but all electrics with the master switch cutting the power to everything. When you reset all seems fine with nothing blown/not working.

It's not happening all the time but has happened about half a dozen times in the past few months. Is usually in the middle of the night when not much is on - the usual stuff on standby, a fridge, a freezer and one light. We also have a mains powered burglar alarm which we don't use but which is "live" (as in the movement detectors have lights which sometimes flash).

It has happened a couple of times in the day also, but seems to be mainly at night. We did have an internal water leak which went undetected for about a month but which was fixed about 3 months ago. I thought that might have been causing it, if water had pooled/tracked along a cable somewhere, but has been fixed for a while now but is still happening. The junction box makes a slight humming noise which you can only hear when the house is completely quiet, but I think this is normal ?

House was built mid 90s and has had no major work done since, as far as I can tell. Any Ideas, is this anything to worry about ?

 

[ericmark]

I would guess you are talking about an earth leakage device and since you say whole house likely a 100ma S type. Job one is to confirm this. I would guess you will find a button called test on the device which trips.

So look on that device and read what it says. Could be 30ma or 100ma or 300ma but in the main when the 30ma is used there are two devices.

With 100ma devices the easy way is to buy a 30ma plug in device and move it from appliance to appliance until faulty one is found. I would expect something like a frost free freezer. With the 30ma device normally there will be two and using an extension lead one swaps which supply each appliance is fed from until you find the faulty one.

Frost free freezers are favourite they have an element which does the defrost which switches on maybe once a day if this becomes faulty very hard to trace. However step one is for us to work out what is tripping and what you have. A good picture of front of the consumer unit (Electric box) will help and this link will explain what a RCD is there is another link here don't expect you to become an expert but at least if you understand a little it may help you describe what you have.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

First place to look is the cooker/oven.
They have a tendency to trip the RCD, regardless of whether they are being used functionally or not, day or night.
If you have a two pole isolator for the cooker/oven, switch it off when not in use, and see if you still get the tripping.
If no isolator unplug/disconnect it, switching a single pole isolator will not help, so unplug rather then switch of at socket.

But it could be other equipment causing this, but I tend to go to the cooking appliance first, then anything else with a heating element.

 

[Taylortwocities]

Also look at central heating valves, pumps etc.
And anything external. Lights, sockets, sheds. pond lights & pumps, etc.

 

[SimonH2]

And if you're not sure what you've got - post a photo and the experts will identify it in seconds.