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RCD Keeps Tripping

Joined
28 Mar 2010
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Argyll
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Ever since I moved into my current house (4 years ago), I've had intermittent problems with the RCD tripping - pretty sporadic. I found it quite difficult to pin point.

Recently, its become a bit more regular, and I've managed to track the offending item to the fridge freezer.

The fridge freezer works perfectly, and I'd be loath to shell out for another one, but obviously something is causing earth leagage.

Could anyone advice what to check, or anything else I could try to stop it tripping the RCD?

Thanks
 
what rating is the RCD? Most likely 30mA or 100mA. How often do you test it?

is there just one RCD for the whole house, or is it just for downstairs sockets, or what?

how old is the electrical installation?

do you live in town or country?

do you have an overhead or underground supply?

A photo of the Consumer Unit, RCD, and the various cables around and between the consumer unit and meter, especially any green and yellow ones, would be useful. http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=129539

pull the FF out from the wall and check the defrost dish and drain tube for blockage, spillage, leakage and dirt. There may be a lot of fungus in it. The compressor and motor are probably sealed in a pressure drum so you can't service them, but disconnect power and check that all accessible connections are clean and dry.
 
Thanks, here an update:

what rating is the RCD? Most likely 30mA or 100mA. How often do you test it? - its a 30mA RCD, and its tested regularly.

is there just one RCD for the whole house, or is it just for downstairs sockets, or what? - One RCD for the whole house

how old is the electrical installation? - just over 20 years old

do you live in town or country? - In town

do you have an overhead or underground supply? - Underground supply

Picture attached:

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OK

The Memera 21 is quite old, and although a very good brand and good for its time, not up to modern standards.

There is a faint chance the RCD is out of spec, but it would be quite costly to have it tested and replaced.

more likely the problem is that you have the whole house on a single RCD. What happens is that you get small leakages on every circuit, especially from watery appliances or those with heating elements, such as kettles, washing machines, immersion heaters, boilers and their pumps; and also from computers, and from outdoor things like lighting or fountains which might get a bit damp. What happens next is that all these little leakages add up to to (say) 15 mA. You then get a small additional leakage from another appliance, and although it would not alone be enough to cause a trip, it brings the total up to enough to trip the RCD.

For example, in my own house, the ground floor sockets (which includes an old washing machine, garage sockets and outdoor lighting) has a background leakage of 5 to 15mA. Very occasionally it will trip (I have a separate RCD (RCBOs actually) for each floor of my house.)

What will probably happen in your case, if, as is likely, you have a general level of background leakage, is that even if you buy a new fridge-freezer, something else will tip you over the tripping point from time to time. It might be an electric cooker or an immersion heater.

A better solution would be to replace the old Memera 21 with a Memera 2000 consumer unit with RCBOs for each socket circuit, and one RCD for everything else, or, better, an RCBO for each circuit.

You cannot fit RCBOs to your old CU.

Unfortunately the RCBOs are more than £30 each :cry: and fitting a new consumer unit has to be done (in England and Wales, I don't know Scottish laws on this) by a person who is a member of a scheme that can carry out tests and issue certificates. It is likely to cost some hundreds of pounds :cry:

Ask around friends, neighbours and colleagues to see if the is a recommended local electrician, but before asking for a quote, find out (someone on here will know) what qualifications and memberships he needs to have. An electrician who is properly qualified will not mind you asking for evidence, he will be proud that he is qualified.

MEM is a very good brand, so I'd stay with that. It is particularly popular in industrial and commercial environments as it is very reliable. Their metal enclosures are stronger but more expensive than plastic ones. Their latest CUs are the Memera 2000AD range, but the squarer Memera 2000 range is IMO stronger and more roomy inside. The RCBOs are taller than MCBs so need more space. The internal fittings are the same in both ranges.
 
One of your problems will be that you have a 30mA RCD as the main incomer. this is not recommended as it is a single point of failure.

Also it means that small amounts of earth leakage on the other circuits can add up to make the RCD trip sporadically.

Do check out your F/F but I rather think that this can only be properly sorted by changing your consumer's unit for one that has multiple RCDs.
 
Just leave em all out, quicker typing...

I must comment that I too have inherited an RCD incomer board, Hager, and have lived with it for the past 11 years.

It has tripped three times:

1. tumble dryer element went t*ts-up.

2. son stuffed knife into toaster while switched on.

3. water leak while away half-filled under-floor void and wet a junction box.

We have never had an unexplained tripping episode or tripping due to accumulation of leakage current.
 
Folks,

Thanks for the excellent posts & advice. I'll be tackling this in sequence !

I will update when the work is all done.

vmt
 
Are you absolutely positive it is the F/F?

You could really do with an IR tester & an ammeter capable of measuring mA to help you with this.
 
Thanks,

Pretty much sure its the FF. Last night I disconnected everything from the downstairs circuit, and it tripped about 5 times. Having said that, it could of course be a combination of earth leakage overall, and the FF is tipping the RCD over the trip limit.

I've had a look at the FF, and there's nothing obviously wrong with it.

I think I'm going to look at getting a new CU, and split RCD's properly rated.

As someone else posted above, 30mA, would seem to be inappropriate as the single point of failure.
 
I have a property which is rented out and as a quick fix about 7-8 years ago a 30mA rcd was fitted in place of the Henly. There are 2 CU's, 8Way for the house and 4way feeding outside lighting & 3 outbuildings, each with a small CU.
The installation passes a PIR each year with the recommendation that it be up graded and in that time it has tripped twice, when a mouse chewed a flex and when the fencing guys cut the feed to the garage.
 
Update:

Back to square one ! I disconnected the FF, but the bloody thing kept tripping ! I've sequentially switched off each circuit in turn, but its very sporadic with no positive indication.

There is simply no pattern - it can trip every 10 minutes, then be ok for a couple of days ! Grrr

Intuitively, I think it may be the RCD that faulty, or build up of earth leakage that is causing the RCD to trip.

I'm going to replace the 30mA RCD, with a 60 or 80mA RCD, and see if that works.
 
You shouldnt replace the RCD.

Possibly there is some cabling somewhere which is suffering water damage etc.
 

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