Fuse box tripping?
- Thread starter Benty1985
- Start date
Testing, if you are unable to confirm just what causes it to trip, might involve disconnecting sections of the wiring, at the ceiling roses, to locate the section. Doing that, might identify a fault, or at least a fault localised to one area/one section of cable, if it has been nicked by a floorboard nail.
Your trace faults, by finding the fault, not by replacing components willy-nilly, and hope.
Let us know the outcome
Now I see the consumer unit my advice is not the way to go.
I pretty much agree.
Yes slow powering down is a made up story -100%
Loose wire in a ceiling rose would not cause intermittent tripping - I agree with almost certainty
- not completely impossible that a loose connection would cause itermittent fault whereas a sound tight connection would make the tripping occour nearly everytime.
Having said that it would be difficult to actually attempt to deliberately make that happen if even one wished too, so higher than 90% certaintity (probably near 99%) this is not happening but it is just about credible on very very rare occasions - a loose connection can be under floorboards or behind sockets/switches etc and can happen from vibration of something nearby or a bit further away.
It would not be on my list of one of the first thing to check for.
Please tell us how you found this person.
Do they claim to belong to any of the “competent” schemes?
Did they put any of the things you’ve written above in writing?
Yeah it's really difficult at the minute because there's no was to predict when it will happen. I can go 2 days without it happening so it's hard to unplug something one at a time. We love on a main road so plenty of wagons go past but the house hasn't shook when it has happened. Just doing my head in not knowing
To me it sounds like it's possibly an intermitent short between live or neutral to earth or connection breaking down. In my experience testing with a megger or such at a higher voltage will show thiis type of fault quickly. So as long a the next guy tests properly it should show up without too much difficulty
If it is only the downstairs lighting circuit tripping, then it is completely pointless unplugging things - things which you plug in, are not on that lighting circuit.
Rather you should be doing what I suggested earlier - Turn a light on, on that downstairs lighting circuit, and leave it on, as a means to know exactly when, and doing what causes it to trip. That light left on, might be the hall light. When you notice it has tripped, make a mental note of just what you were doing before the trip - were you moving about upstairs, and where? Repeat the process, to see if there might be some correlation.
What you were doing and where, might just provide a useful clue as to where the fault might be. It could be as simple as a floorboard screw, or nail, protruding into the ground floor lighting circuit. There is no certainty, that will be the cause, but fault-finding, is a process of elimination. It's obviously an intermittent fault, so most likely a result of some movement, or vibration, on the floor above.
Sorry I was more replying to the other suggestion of unplugging things. Couple of examples, watching telly last night. Both me and the wife sat on the couch, no lights on and then I heard the switch flick. Went bed and everything was fine around 21:30. Got up at 4:30 and they'd tripped during the night. Good idea on leaving the light on. I'll start recording times and what's going on in the house at the time
With the example of walking on floorboards, sometimes you might walk on or near those floorboards and it does not always trip but sometimes it does - that can be a clue too , do not rely on intermittent trips to occour every time, they do not always do so but sometimes they pretty much always do so.
That is the thing that is intermitent faults and makes them often more tricky to find.
A fault that is always there or never there is the easy one to summise.
The thing with Breakers (including RCBOs operating on the breaker mechanism part rather than the RCD part) is that they make a "Thwack" when tripping whilst a fuse, rewireable types are best and 30A fusewire is better that 15A or 5A) is then make a more useful "BANG" which can be quite satisfying and make life easier - Caution though, never put a fuse or breaker of a larger size than required just to get a better result because it can cause absolute havoc to yourself and your property - some fols actually do this but they are Pratts so beware.
That is the thing that is intermitent faults and makes them often more tricky to find.
A fault that is always there or never there is the easy one to summise.
The thing with Breakers (including RCBOs operating on the breaker mechanism part rather than the RCD part) is that they make a "Thwack" when tripping whilst a fuse, rewireable types are best and 30A fusewire is better that 15A or 5A) is then make a more useful "BANG" which can be quite satisfying and make life easier - Caution though, never put a fuse or breaker of a larger size than required just to get a better result because it can cause absolute havoc to yourself and your property - some fols actually do this but they are Pratts so beware.
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