RCD Tripping

S

stedon1

The washing machine in my house is tripping my RCD. It is on a ring main and I have recently had my consumer unit upgraded. Does it have to be on an RCD? :confused:
 
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Yes (unless the cable supplying the circuit is buried to a greater depth than 50mm or it is in earthed steel conduit, which are both unlikely).

RCD's are very sensitive. Has the washer got a leak anywhere which has got to the plug socket? Also older appliances tend to cause more nuisance tripping from RCD's - especially water related appliances.
 
Thanks Bongos. The washing machine is only 8 months old, I've had it checked by an appliance engineer and he said everything seemed fine. As you've said the cables aren't in steel pipe or buried deeper than 50mm. Any ideas? :confused:
 
Having the washer circuit moved over onto an RCBO that's fed direct from the DP isolator in the consumer unit (NOT from the existing RCD) may help the situation. If you have other appliances with high earth leakage then the washing machine could just be the straw that broke the camels back.

However, it's not guaranteed to help, not all dual RCD consumer units have a direct fed busbar (assuming you have a dual RCD board due to recent CU change), and it will cost you £20-£30 in parts plus callout and labour possibly just to find out that it hasn't made any difference.

Without moving the washer across to a new, correctly installed, non-RCD circuit I can't really see what you can do about it.
 
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Cheers guys. Just to clarify, although there are no guarantees that it will work, fitting an RCBO could solve the problem. Are they less sensitive than RCD's?
 
Also electronicsuk, what would I have to do for a correctly installed non RCD circuit?
 
Cheers guys. Just to clarify, although there are no guarantees that it will work, fitting an RCBO could solve the problem. Are they less sensitive than RCD's?

The sensitivity will be the same, there are RCDs and RCBOs available with various trip currents, but for protection of a domestic installation you are required to use 30mA.

The advantage of the RCBO is that it will isolate the circuit the washing machine is on, so that you're not summing up the earth leakage of other common culprits such as computers/ovens/showers/heaters/etc. Whether or not it's worth doing depends on the size of the circuit, if your entire house only has one ring final then there will be very little benefit to adding an RCBO.
 
They are not less sensitive - both should trip at 30mA.

But an RCD will cover several circuits (so an accumulation of earth leakage from these circuits).

An RCBO covers just one circuit and acts as both an RCD and a MCB in one unit. So if your washing machine is casuing 20mA earth leakage if it is on its own RCBO then it won't trip. But if this was combined with the earth leakage of other circuits then it might be enough leakage to cause this nuisance tripping.

Thas's the theory anyway... :LOL:
 
Also electronicsuk, what would I have to do for a correctly installed non RCD circuit?

You can conceal a steel wire armoured cable [or non-armoured cable in earthed metal conduit] in the wall at less than 50mm deep, you can conceal a non-armoured cable at >50mm deep, or run the cable on the surface either clipped direct or in conduit/trunking.

As far as practicality is installed, conduit/trunking or clipped direct will be easiest and mean the least disruption to existing decor.
 

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