Nuisence tripping

[Expertboy]

Hi,

Please bare with me i'm not the greatest electrical person in the world.

About 6 months ago a property a few doors down and across the road from us damaged some underground electrical cables whilst having an extension built, this tripped our Protek consumer unit constantly while the problem was there. After about a 3 days of the electric board involved it was repaired.

Now for my problem. Ever since that has happened i'm now getting my Protek cu trip out, it's not tripping out on the large switch, but it's tripping out the main rcd at random times such as middle of the night and whenever it feels like it really and taking out most of the house.

I have tried relentlesley since then to eliminate appliances that may be causing the problem at my end, but just when you think you have found the solution it trips again.

Could this be something to do with the other property? or was it likely a coincidence?

 

[pjcomp]

Sounds from your description that the previous incident may still be to blame. Are any of your neighbours having the same problems? Tell the electric board about it and see if they'll come back to investigate.

PJ

 

[Expertboy]

Ok thanks for that. None of the neighbours have the same problem as far as i'm aware but i will ask about.

I will call EON in the morning.

thanks again.

 

[Expertboy]

Ok thanks for that. None of the neighbours have the same problem as far as i'm aware but i will ask about.

I will call EON in the morning.

thanks again.

 

[automationman]

Did you have any luck with EON?

The only theory (and I stress theory only) I can think of is that your original earthing system had quite a high impedence (similat to resistance) and the repair accross the street meant replacing a section of cable that contributed to that high impedance. Now your earth circuit has a lower impedance and you have either an overly sensitive RCD or a genuin earth leakage fault on either fixed wiring or on an appliance.

If EON have not helped then you might want to have an electrician perform an insulation test on your wiring and a test on your RCD using an RCD tester. An RCD tester can show the sensitivity and response time for your RCD. A modern CD is not directly connected to the earth circuit but it does detect/respond to leakage currents that that pass to the main earthing of your property.

 

[automationman]

Did you have any luck with EON?

The only theory (and I stress theory only) I can think of is that your original earthing system had quite a high impedence (similat to resistance) and the repair accross the street meant replacing a section of cable that contributed to that high impedance. Now your earth circuit has a lower impedance and you have either an overly sensitive RCD or a genuin earth leakage fault on either fixed wiring or on an appliance.

If EON have not helped then you might want to have an electrician perform an insulation test on your wiring and a test on your RCD using an RCD tester. An RCD tester can show the sensitivity and response time for your RCD. A modern CD is not directly connected to the earth circuit but it does detect/respond to leakage currents that that pass to the main earthing of your property.