Hi Guys,
Just signed-up, so hello to everyone! first post...be gentle (pls)! Apologies in advance for the length of the post.
I have a home office at the bottom of the garden, built this time last year, the power was installed by a local electrical company, but I'm getting constant tripping of the RCD's.
The installation is as follows:
- 30A supply (dedicated circuit) from house consumer unit was already feeding the garage.
- A new 'board was installed into the garage, supplied by the above 30A feed, with a 63A/30mA RCD and a single B20 MCB (Proteus metalclad surface mount unit)
- This MCB feeds the home office (about 20m away) via amoured cable.
- A second consumer unit (same as the Proteus unit above) is installed in the office, with a 63A/30mA RCD and two MCB's; one marked B20 for the ring main cct, the other marked B6 feeding a 2A lighting cct.
- An earth spike is installed directly outside the office, behind the fusebox.
The problem I'm getting is that the office RCD will often trip. I can trigger this by simply plugging in a "kettle" lead into the back of my home PC or monitor (note, not necessarily switching it on, just applying power to the device), sometimes switching on a laser printer will cause it to trip.
I've recently finished building a new PC, using an 850W PSU (Enermax), that also does exactly the same. This morning I was lucky and didnt trip the supply by plugging it in, but as soon as I tried to power it up, "bang", it tripped. Sometimes just the office RCD, sometimes also the garage RCD.
I have two 1kW panel heaters installed into the office, neither of which have tripped the power when coming on via the timer, or cutting in on the thermostat.
The final "googly" is that I'll quite often come in first thing in the morning to find it's tripped overnight. Heaters arent programmed to come on, nothing is powered up, no lights....the only things "active" are a mini hi-fi on standby and a scanner also on standby.
To reset the supply is a helluva game, and definately the point that makes all this completely irritating and now intolerable!....there seems to be no routine that works every time, its a case of walking back and forth to the garage, resetting that one, coming back down, resetting the office RCD, etc, etc..back and forth like a fiddlers elbow, sometimes taking 10-15mins to get it going again, as just resetting the MCB's will always re-trigger the RCD(s).
I've just been checking every socket, both 13A and 2A lighting; all connections are fine, and the way in which they're wired up looks logical to me as well. The connections in each consumer unit also look good, as does the connection to the earth spike outside.
Please help, I'm going mad and not getting any proper work done!
(BTW..the company that originally installed the electrics will not be invited back to look at it, for a number of reasons that I shouldnt go into here)
Do I need a different category MCB? I presume mine are Type B, which I believe have a tolerance for domestic inrush currents? Can RCD's be faulty insomuch as being too sensitive? I know RCD can only be tripped by a short-cct or drawing too much current, but the new PC (above) also has a new PSU. As a test, I took it indoors, and everything behaved perfectly.
I have 13A plug-in Power & Energy Monitor (from Maplin) and have made sure I'm not drawing too much current from each outlet and also in total (although sure of this before, as sometimes it goes during the night with virtually nothing on).
Any help gratefully received!
Cheers
Spencer
Just signed-up, so hello to everyone! first post...be gentle (pls)! Apologies in advance for the length of the post.
I have a home office at the bottom of the garden, built this time last year, the power was installed by a local electrical company, but I'm getting constant tripping of the RCD's.
The installation is as follows:
- 30A supply (dedicated circuit) from house consumer unit was already feeding the garage.
- A new 'board was installed into the garage, supplied by the above 30A feed, with a 63A/30mA RCD and a single B20 MCB (Proteus metalclad surface mount unit)
- This MCB feeds the home office (about 20m away) via amoured cable.
- A second consumer unit (same as the Proteus unit above) is installed in the office, with a 63A/30mA RCD and two MCB's; one marked B20 for the ring main cct, the other marked B6 feeding a 2A lighting cct.
- An earth spike is installed directly outside the office, behind the fusebox.
The problem I'm getting is that the office RCD will often trip. I can trigger this by simply plugging in a "kettle" lead into the back of my home PC or monitor (note, not necessarily switching it on, just applying power to the device), sometimes switching on a laser printer will cause it to trip.
I've recently finished building a new PC, using an 850W PSU (Enermax), that also does exactly the same. This morning I was lucky and didnt trip the supply by plugging it in, but as soon as I tried to power it up, "bang", it tripped. Sometimes just the office RCD, sometimes also the garage RCD.
I have two 1kW panel heaters installed into the office, neither of which have tripped the power when coming on via the timer, or cutting in on the thermostat.
The final "googly" is that I'll quite often come in first thing in the morning to find it's tripped overnight. Heaters arent programmed to come on, nothing is powered up, no lights....the only things "active" are a mini hi-fi on standby and a scanner also on standby.
To reset the supply is a helluva game, and definately the point that makes all this completely irritating and now intolerable!....there seems to be no routine that works every time, its a case of walking back and forth to the garage, resetting that one, coming back down, resetting the office RCD, etc, etc..back and forth like a fiddlers elbow, sometimes taking 10-15mins to get it going again, as just resetting the MCB's will always re-trigger the RCD(s).
I've just been checking every socket, both 13A and 2A lighting; all connections are fine, and the way in which they're wired up looks logical to me as well. The connections in each consumer unit also look good, as does the connection to the earth spike outside.
Please help, I'm going mad and not getting any proper work done!
(BTW..the company that originally installed the electrics will not be invited back to look at it, for a number of reasons that I shouldnt go into here)
Do I need a different category MCB? I presume mine are Type B, which I believe have a tolerance for domestic inrush currents? Can RCD's be faulty insomuch as being too sensitive? I know RCD can only be tripped by a short-cct or drawing too much current, but the new PC (above) also has a new PSU. As a test, I took it indoors, and everything behaved perfectly.
I have 13A plug-in Power & Energy Monitor (from Maplin) and have made sure I'm not drawing too much current from each outlet and also in total (although sure of this before, as sometimes it goes during the night with virtually nothing on).
Any help gratefully received!
Cheers
Spencer