When Should my RCD trip?

[RobLitllewood]

Hi Everyone,

I have just had a new consumer unit fitted where the electrician just replaced the old one and maintained all the old circuits in the house. We have the usual upstairs and downstairs circuits and then we have a 'kitchen circuit' as I think it was added later.

We are currently replacing the kitchen and I was going to move some of the sockets on the kitchen ring. I tuned off the trip switch for the kitchen circuit and cut the inlet cable to the ring. When I cut the return cable for the ring the RCD tripped. This repeated over and over again? I might not be understanding how the RCD operates, but should it trip if I cut a cable and the specific circuit has been turned off at the consumer unit???

Any help to understand would be great!

Cheers

Rob

 

[EFLImpudence]

Yes, you will have connected Neutral and Earth when you cut the cable.

The RCD has detected this as a fault - which it is.

 

[ricicle]

//www.diynot.com/wiki/electric...ergised_circuits_with_neutral_to_earth_faults

 

[ban-all-sheds]

We are currently replacing the kitchen and I was going to move some of the sockets on the kitchen ring. I tuned off the trip switch for the kitchen circuit and cut the inlet cable to the ring. When I cut the return cable for the ring the RCD tripped.

Have you applied for Building Regulations approval?

 

[ericmark]

if you have turned off all live feeds then it will not trip. However most UK houses do not allow one to "Isolate" other then turning off the whole supply. In the main the MCB found in most consumer units is single pole and only switches one live wire "the line", it does not switch off the other live wire "the neutral". So in essence what you did is considered as live working.