Need to provide some background;
Original electrical installation in our utility room had one twin 13 amp socket plate above worktop, with two holes drilled in worktop, and two cables passing through worktop feeding washing machine and tumble dryer below. Ugly.
On refurbishing the room, we got electricians in to install two new single (switched) 13 amp sockets below worktop level, and put a new double switched socket above worktop in same place as previous.
Utility room and adjacent kitchen are all on the 'kitchen' ring main.
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Once they had done their work, I wanted to paint around the single socket feeding the tumble dryer, so switched off at the consumer unit, and unscrewed the socket to pull it partly away from the wall, and get paint brush behind. There was a flash from behind the socket, and all the socket circuits in the house went dead. The lighting circuits were still active.
I took a look behind the socket to find that one of the insulations had been nicked, and appeared to have short-circuited. Their office was closed, but one of the fitters had contacted us via mobile, so we rang him, explained the situation, and since it was early evening, he came round almost immediately.
He had a look, cut back the nicked wire to good insulation, and took a look elsewhere. I didn't see everything that he did, but he declared that we had "lost a neutral somewhere" and I think he connected a neutral from (one of) the lighting circuits, within the consumer unit, to (one of) the ring mains to restore it. Didn't sound like standard practice to me, but....
We probably should have pressed harder on them to come and rectify this further, but other matters took precedence, and we soldiered on.
A few months later, the tumble dryer stopped working. I reached down to the socket, and went to switch it off at the socket, and remove the plug. The switch would not move to the off position. It's stuck on. I unplugged the dryer, plugged it in to the above-worktop double socket, and it worked fine.
We've been using the dryer in this socket for a few months now, always plugging it in to the RH socket. We've noticed that the plug, and the switch area of the socket were getting warm/hot, and resolved to get another electrician in when time permits. The access to the rear of the consumer unit is below the utility room floor, and we'd have to lift flooring to get to the hatch, so ....
Within the last few days, the dryer stopped working again. I unplugged it, switched off the RH socket, and switched on/plugged in again. It worked for 10 mins or so, then stopped. With the machine plugged in, and switched off at the socket, switching on at the socket gave a little 'kick' of activity at the machine, but no startup/running.
Unplugged it from RH socket, plugged in to LH socket, and it's working fine, but the plug, and the LH switch, are both hot when in operation, the switch almost at the point where it's too hot to touch.
So it looks as though the switches are being disabled by heat.
The dryer works fine, and shows no fault symptom other than the (moulded plug) getting hot. The cable is cool, but not the plug.
Anyone got any input, or thoughts as to root cause?
I'm on the verge of cutting the moulded plug off the cable, and replacing with a decent MK. Could that be an issue? Wouldn't explain why the switches get hot, though....
Original electrical installation in our utility room had one twin 13 amp socket plate above worktop, with two holes drilled in worktop, and two cables passing through worktop feeding washing machine and tumble dryer below. Ugly.
On refurbishing the room, we got electricians in to install two new single (switched) 13 amp sockets below worktop level, and put a new double switched socket above worktop in same place as previous.
Utility room and adjacent kitchen are all on the 'kitchen' ring main.
===
Once they had done their work, I wanted to paint around the single socket feeding the tumble dryer, so switched off at the consumer unit, and unscrewed the socket to pull it partly away from the wall, and get paint brush behind. There was a flash from behind the socket, and all the socket circuits in the house went dead. The lighting circuits were still active.
I took a look behind the socket to find that one of the insulations had been nicked, and appeared to have short-circuited. Their office was closed, but one of the fitters had contacted us via mobile, so we rang him, explained the situation, and since it was early evening, he came round almost immediately.
He had a look, cut back the nicked wire to good insulation, and took a look elsewhere. I didn't see everything that he did, but he declared that we had "lost a neutral somewhere" and I think he connected a neutral from (one of) the lighting circuits, within the consumer unit, to (one of) the ring mains to restore it. Didn't sound like standard practice to me, but....
We probably should have pressed harder on them to come and rectify this further, but other matters took precedence, and we soldiered on.
A few months later, the tumble dryer stopped working. I reached down to the socket, and went to switch it off at the socket, and remove the plug. The switch would not move to the off position. It's stuck on. I unplugged the dryer, plugged it in to the above-worktop double socket, and it worked fine.
We've been using the dryer in this socket for a few months now, always plugging it in to the RH socket. We've noticed that the plug, and the switch area of the socket were getting warm/hot, and resolved to get another electrician in when time permits. The access to the rear of the consumer unit is below the utility room floor, and we'd have to lift flooring to get to the hatch, so ....
Within the last few days, the dryer stopped working again. I unplugged it, switched off the RH socket, and switched on/plugged in again. It worked for 10 mins or so, then stopped. With the machine plugged in, and switched off at the socket, switching on at the socket gave a little 'kick' of activity at the machine, but no startup/running.
Unplugged it from RH socket, plugged in to LH socket, and it's working fine, but the plug, and the LH switch, are both hot when in operation, the switch almost at the point where it's too hot to touch.
So it looks as though the switches are being disabled by heat.
The dryer works fine, and shows no fault symptom other than the (moulded plug) getting hot. The cable is cool, but not the plug.
Anyone got any input, or thoughts as to root cause?
I'm on the verge of cutting the moulded plug off the cable, and replacing with a decent MK. Could that be an issue? Wouldn't explain why the switches get hot, though....
