Hi,
My house is supplied by overhead cables so has a combined main switch/ RCD fitted. This has been trouble free for around 10 years but in the last couple of months has taken to tripping for no good reason. There is no pattern to the tripping, it can happen anytime day or night with no correlation to which appliances are running in the house. It always resets first time withouth having to switch off any of the circuits. It can go for a couple of weeks without tripping or trip as often as twice a day
I have had the Electricity supply company out, who checked the installation and found no fault other than a volt drop of 10v compared to my next door neighbour (who is further from the sub than me!). A followup check by a line team found no fault....
I've gone down the route of unplugging appliances but to no avail - it still trips. A visual inspection of sockets and swithches showed no loose connections.
So, it's a question of where do I go from here. I'm not an electrician and would value some advice from those more knowledgeable on the forum. Is it likely that it is my RCD that is failing? Or is it more likely that I'm getting spikes from outside that are causing the problem?
It occurs to me that replacing the existing 30mA RCD with a 100mA device would both rule out a faulty RCD and make the installation less sensitive to external spikes. (I have a socket in the garage to which I could fit another 30mA RCD for lawnmower protection.)
Any thoughts? does this sound sensible or is there another, more obvious solution that I've missed. Any advice welcomed!
Cheers
Ron
My house is supplied by overhead cables so has a combined main switch/ RCD fitted. This has been trouble free for around 10 years but in the last couple of months has taken to tripping for no good reason. There is no pattern to the tripping, it can happen anytime day or night with no correlation to which appliances are running in the house. It always resets first time withouth having to switch off any of the circuits. It can go for a couple of weeks without tripping or trip as often as twice a day
I have had the Electricity supply company out, who checked the installation and found no fault other than a volt drop of 10v compared to my next door neighbour (who is further from the sub than me!). A followup check by a line team found no fault....
I've gone down the route of unplugging appliances but to no avail - it still trips. A visual inspection of sockets and swithches showed no loose connections.
So, it's a question of where do I go from here. I'm not an electrician and would value some advice from those more knowledgeable on the forum. Is it likely that it is my RCD that is failing? Or is it more likely that I'm getting spikes from outside that are causing the problem?
It occurs to me that replacing the existing 30mA RCD with a 100mA device would both rule out a faulty RCD and make the installation less sensitive to external spikes. (I have a socket in the garage to which I could fit another 30mA RCD for lawnmower protection.)
Any thoughts? does this sound sensible or is there another, more obvious solution that I've missed. Any advice welcomed!
Cheers
Ron