New Meter Problems???

[Glassman]

Sorry to be vague but Im no electrician.

About a fortnight ago we asked our electricity supplier to remove our pre-pay token meter because we want to pay our electricty bills quarterly.

They took the old token meter off the wall and fitted a very small white box which has a small digital display on the front and 4 wires coming out of the bottom of it (2 black and 2 red).

Everything was fine and dandy for a day or two but then the trip switch went off. So I reset the trip switch but the power kept tripping off every half an hour or so. Anyway, I paid for an electrician to come out because I thouth perhaps there might have been a problem with a plug socket in the kitchen but when he arrived the first thing he pointed out was that the new meter was not earthed correctly. He called the supplier on my behalf to inform them of the error of their ways but basically they fobbed him off.
So to save time and aggravation he fitted an new earth cable for us and everything seemed to be fine for about a week.

Now we're having problems again. The power won't seem stay on for more than 20 minutes at a time and we've now had to move into the parents house until we can get it sorted.
The electrician is back at the house at the moment ripping up the the upstairs floorboards to check all the wiring through the house and I'm pulling my hair out in despair.
He reckons that there is an intermittent fault and it could be that a nail might have gone through a wire but we paid for the house to be completely re-wired 2 years ago and personally I think this is unlikely.

Basically the problem seem to have started when we had the new electric meter fitted a fortnight ago and I have a niggling feeling that the electricity company had bodged up somewhere. However, when I call them to question it they fobb me off and have even threatened to remove the meter and trip switches to make the house safe.

Has anybody else come across a problem like this before? and what is the likely cause?
Is it possible that the fitter may have bodged something when he removed the P.M.E. meter?

It is going to cost me a fortune and we still haven't found the source of the probem. Any advice would be appreciated. Please help

 

[davy_owen_88]

Its not going to be a problem with your meter unless they changed the tails at the CU end and somehow managed to cock up something within the CU while they were there - this is unlikely though because the DNO normally won't touch the consumer side of the installation and instead request a sparky to do the other work (ie earth connections, CU tails etc.)

When you say trip switch what do you mean? An RCD or a single MCB?

 

[Glassman]

Thanks for the reply.

I think it's the RCD that keeps tripping. The power goes off to all plug sockets in the house when it trips.

The lights in the house are on a seperate circuit apparently so they dont go off. The electrician says this is a safety thing so we aren't left in the dark when the RCD trips.

When I called the sparky originally he said he suspected the oven might have been the cause but this has since been eliminated and now we're back at square one which is why he is ripping up the floorboards.

It sort of makes sense that it might be a nail in the upstairs floor and a few friends have said the same thing but nobody is actually upstairs when the power trips and I would have thought the power would only going off when you walked over the faulty wire?

The electrician has also suggested that hot pipes might cause wood in the flooring to expand and press against a wire. This also makes sense but I switched off and isolated the boiler days ago and the RCD is still tripping

Sorry if this sounds vague but I dont really have that much of an understanding for electrics. I will try to put up pictures of the box if it helps?

 

[securespark]

Digi meters are not earthed. Maybe the spark noticed the Main Earthing Conductor was undersized and changed this.

As Davy says, all they would have done was a straight swap. This won't be causing your RCD to trip.

I suggest a different problem. Faults are strange beasts: everything can be fine for 40 years then a problem can appear just like that then disappear just as quickly only to reappear at frustratingly random intervals.

You need to ask the spark to do two things.First, fully test the RCD in isolation.

Then if that is in the clear, do Insulation Resistance tests on all circuits attached to that RCD.

 

[Glassman]

Thanks for the replies fella's. I really appreciate it.

The sparky reckons he may have found a faulty wire and has changed it. Yet again things seem to be okay again and I'm hoping that this time things stay that way.

Apparently it was a wire that ran down the wall and into an un-used double plug socket behind the settee. He has put about 5 metres of new cable in and things seem to be back to normal.

I thought there was no way it could have been a faulty wire because I only bought the house about 3 years ago. I had it completely gutted and had it completely re-wired (and certified) before any of the walls were plastered to save me from this sort of grief and aggravation later on.

Thanks again

 

[devonspark]

You may have an active trip (as opposed to passive) I think MEM rcds are. Look for a thin white wire from the RCD to the earth bar. If so it could be the meter fitter has not tightened the neutral tail in the meter causing it to heat up and break the neutra supply , an active RCD will sense this and trip. Just a thought.

 

[JohnD]

I understood the white wire was to detect pulsating DC faults.

Active and Passive on RCDs usually mean it trips Off after a power failure and has to be manually switched back on (or doen't) which is handy if you are working on what appears to be a dead circuit and someone re-energises it.

 

[Lectrician]

I think he uses the term "white wire" to identify the RCD type only.

The MEM DC Sence RCD's do indeed trip with loss of neutral (not loss of live.....that would be annoying!).