turning off kitchen light trips rcd?????

[danandlou]

please help?????

probably about twice a week my husband and i go to turn off our kitchen light and it will trip the plug socket rcd. this is a council property and i have asked and asked them to solve this and they are just looking at me like im stupid.

quite obviously the two circuits are not normally linked but we think somewhere they must be or it wouldnt happen.

our local electricians have done a complete electrical check and checked all sockets and lights in our house and claim that nothing is wrong at all but it is still doing it.

we are at a total loss as to what to do and the council have pretty much given up on us. they just keep telling us that its all been checked and its fine.

as i said before they look at us as though we are stupid.

please someone help us.

 

[breezer]

change the light

 

[BS3036]

As a matter of interest, is it a fluorescent light?

 

[TopPosition]

please help?????

probably about twice a week my husband and i go to turn off our kitchen light and it will trip the plug socket rcd. this is a council property and i have asked and asked them to solve this and they are just looking at me like im stupid.

quite obviously the two circuits are not normally linked but we think somewhere they must be or it wouldnt happen.

our local electricians have done a complete electrical check and checked all sockets and lights in our house and claim that nothing is wrong at all but it is still doing it.

we are at a total loss as to what to do and the council have pretty much given up on us. they just keep telling us that its all been checked and its fine.

as i said before they look at us as though we are stupid.

please someone help us.

You're quite right, the circuits must be linked somehow.

Skip this bit if you know how an RCD works. Inside the RCD is a device which detects when the current flowing through the live is not balanced by the current flowing through the neutral. If there is an imbalance for even a few milliseconds the RCD trips out.

You haven't said what the RCD's rating is at nor where it is sited. Is it just on the sockets or does it control other circuits too?

 

[securespark]

I have an appointment to return to a fault where there is a 30mA RCD incomer.

The customer did not suffer a fault until a new RCD was fitted because the old one had failed.

Now, intermittently, the RCD will trip when her under-cupboard fluorescent lighting is switched OFF. The RCD stays in if you switch off all the fittings at their respective switches, so it is nothing to do with the fixed wiring.

I then thought it may be a fault with one particular fitting, but no.

Whichever fitting (there are 6 in total) I switch back into the circuit can cause the RCD to trip.

I have IR'd the installation and it is fine. The RCD is testing fine, with a ramp of 24mA.

It is a PME supply, which, combined with an RCD can cause all sorts of strange faults and if I get to the bottom of it, I will post my findings here.

Is your supply PME? If it is, there is usually a label near the cutout saying so.

So, at the moment, the customer has a minor works certificate proclaiming her installation healthy from the POV of IR, RCD behaviour & EFLI.

This is probably where you're at with the LA. Did they give you a certificate with test results on as well?

If not, you could at least demand they return & provide a MWC to show they have at least eliminated certain factors from the equation.

 

[RF Lighting]

I had a fault where an RCD was tripping at random, but seemed to coincide with switching the landing light (non RCD)

It was a new CU which I had installed. The whole installation tested out fine. IIRC this was a TN-S supply.

It turned out to be a high resistance connection on the incommer neutral (on the DNO side of the cutout).

Took me weeks, and several visits by me and another sparks to sus this one out.

I will not discuss how I found this fault in an open forum though. (Can we have our new forum yet?)

 

[securespark]

Mods: Can you split this off?

Rob, are you suggesting this could be the problem in my case, where the installation is protected by an RCD incomer on PME supply?