Potterton Suprima 40 trips electricity

[JohnD]

A split-load CU may only cut power to socket circuits (not lights)

so I still want to know what's printed on the thing that's tripping.

 

[mummycold]

Don't be mean to kermit! My muppets were chosen for me by Domestic and General.

Where do I get a competent engineer from?!!!

 

[gas4you]

But op is describing a small mcb is she not ? Although if blue it will only be 15/16 amps, not enough for ring main.

 

[mummycold]

wrs80/2 blue switch rcd 80 amps 30miliamps - circuit breaker that trips

 

[gas4you]

That makes John correct then, rcd on a split circuit, back to earth leakage.

 

[JohnD]

hahahahahahaha!

so it IS the RCD

and it IS caused by an earth leakage

and if it happens when all other appliances have been unplugged, when the boiler starts to ignite, then yes, it does need a boiler engineer

I have no idea what's wrong with the boiler.

edited

I can see the blue switch!

 

[mummycold]

I'm sorry for confusing you - it must be a lack of heat haddling my brain.

If anybody can provide a summary of what the fault could be and what may need to be done I'd be most grateful.

Need to go now but will be back tomorrow.

Thank you very much for help.

 

[gas4you]

We could all tell you why the rcd is tripping, but unless one of us were in front of it to test components we cannot tell you which bit is causing it

 

[bengasman]

As boiler trips ALL sockets, bound to be the rcd. It trips before the boiler lights, so it must be the boiler. Question remains if it is ONLY the boiler or straw breaking camel’s back. Do you have a lot of i.t. gear like laser printers and that? Is so, and they are upstairs, ask sparky to move upstairs sockets off the rcd
Might be an idea to ask the moderators to allow a duplicate to the electric forum

 

[JohnD]

she's already tried unplugging the other appliances

good point about PC equipment which has slight background leakage

so do washing machines

 

[Agile]

I have not tested them but someone told me most satelite receivers have a significant leakage current!

Just realised I had a clamp meter on the desk! Nothing on sat RX but varies up to 37 mA on the electric kettle ! No RCDs here just very solid industrial type MCBs ( Ex RAF house! )

Tony

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

Where do I get a competent engineer from?!!!

What's the first half of your postcode ? You could be on one of our doorsteps

 

[DP]

The hint you can give your heating engineer is to check mains components (like fan, pump, motorised valves) for leakage (passage of cuurent) from either brown/ red or blue/ black wires to earth.

While an electrician would know what to do, he may not know boiler operate sequence so may not be up to it. I would go with a competent heating engineer who knows boiler operation. He would/ could start disconnnecting components (like remove wires from pump) turn gas off and run boiler to see if the breaker trips. If tripping still continues, reinstate disconnection and try disconnecting another component and run boiler again.

 

[mummycold]

I have IT equipment on the bottom floor in the room next to the boiler. The pump is on the third floor where there is not a lot of electrical equipment. I have digital cable on the second floor. Fuse box on bottom floor along with boiler and IT equipment.

 

[JohnD]

I think you will find that the RCD protects all socket circuits (that's the usual way to install a split-load CU). All the eqipment that lost supply when the RCD trips is contributing to the general level of background leakage, which all passes through the one RCD, which adds all the leakages together and trips when the total reaches (about) 30milliamps.

If you just have one RCD that protects all the sockets, it doesn't matter which circuit or floor they are on, as they are all added together at the RCD.