I recently had an electrician round to replace an old fusebox with a new consumer unit. He also replaced the submain between the meter and the consumer unit. My small flat currently has all mains sockets running off a single ring main, and a separate circuit for the cooker (not a ring. A spur?). He has wired the doorbell and two lighting circuits into circuit breakers on the non-RCD side of the unit, and they work fine. He wired the cooker circuit into one of the RCD protected breakers and that's fine too.
But when he connected the ring main (with all my sockets on it) into an RCD-protected breaker, he found that it kept tripping. By plugging in one appliance at a time, he concluded that I had a faulty fridge and a faulty PC - that they both probably had neutral-to-earth leaks which were tripping the RCD. While I tried to get them fixed, he connected the ring main to the non-RCD side of the consumer unit as a temporary measure.
Now I have just had a whole new ring main installed to supply eight new mains sockets in our study. This ring is connected to one of the RCD breakers. *Any* appliance plugged into one of the new sockets causes the RCD to trip, even a mobile phone charger which has no earth (you know just a plastic earth pin). Connecting the new ring to a different RCD breaker doesn't help so I don't think it's a faulty RCD.
This made me think that the problem on the first ring main probably wasn't with the fridge and PC - maybe there's something else going on? I have tried plugging the fridge and the PC into the RCD-protected cooker circuit and they don't cause it to trip, so does that mean they're OK?
I would appreciate *any* advice here - I don't want to spend loads of money getting my appliances checked only to find there's nothing wrong with them. And if the fridge man says he's fixed the problem I can't be sure (and neither can he) that he's right until the electrician comes back again. And I don't want to call the electrician back in if he is mis-diagnosing the problem.
Are there any tests I can do (safely) using a multimeter - e.g. to see if and where there's a neutral-earth leak.
thanks for your time
But when he connected the ring main (with all my sockets on it) into an RCD-protected breaker, he found that it kept tripping. By plugging in one appliance at a time, he concluded that I had a faulty fridge and a faulty PC - that they both probably had neutral-to-earth leaks which were tripping the RCD. While I tried to get them fixed, he connected the ring main to the non-RCD side of the consumer unit as a temporary measure.
Now I have just had a whole new ring main installed to supply eight new mains sockets in our study. This ring is connected to one of the RCD breakers. *Any* appliance plugged into one of the new sockets causes the RCD to trip, even a mobile phone charger which has no earth (you know just a plastic earth pin). Connecting the new ring to a different RCD breaker doesn't help so I don't think it's a faulty RCD.
This made me think that the problem on the first ring main probably wasn't with the fridge and PC - maybe there's something else going on? I have tried plugging the fridge and the PC into the RCD-protected cooker circuit and they don't cause it to trip, so does that mean they're OK?
I would appreciate *any* advice here - I don't want to spend loads of money getting my appliances checked only to find there's nothing wrong with them. And if the fridge man says he's fixed the problem I can't be sure (and neither can he) that he's right until the electrician comes back again. And I don't want to call the electrician back in if he is mis-diagnosing the problem.
Are there any tests I can do (safely) using a multimeter - e.g. to see if and where there's a neutral-earth leak.
thanks for your time