Heated towel rail tripping RCD

[davphi338]

Hi,

My heated towel rail is tripping the main RCD. I'm trying to determine if its the electrical element at fault or something wrong with the wiring. I have disconnected the the Live and Neutral supply to the element and the resistance between earth and Live is approx. 0.5meg ohm, the resistance between neutral and earth starts off at about 0.3Mohms but then drops to 20K. I suspect this proves the element is at fault but want some professional advice before totally remoning it from the radiator only to find its a wiring problem somewhere else.

 

[Lectrician]

Sounds like the element. If you have disconnected it from the outlet plate, can you not turn the circuit on to see if all is ok with out the element connected? That would be proof positive for you.

 

[RF Lighting]

Put a plugtop onto the element and plug it into an extention lead plugged into an RCD protected socket. (For temporary testing purposes only) DO NOT use this as a permanant fix.