Tripswitch

HoolyNI

Our house is 16 years old, we've lived in it for 10, and since we moved in the tripswitch has occasionally thrown....probably once every three months on average.

Normally it is due to a bulb blowing, or switching on a light somewhere.....be it light/extractor in bathroom or fluorescant tubing in the garage. And i remember several irons causing a problem, but last night while watching tv in bed, with nothing suddenly switched on to overload the trip the domestic sockets tripped....reset the trip and 10 minutes later it went again.

Have reset it this morning when i got up and 30 minutes later it still working okay.

Anyone any ideas? Earth leakage perhaps?

optimus_primera

Its obviously not happy with something ....... I would call a sparky to have a look, just to be on the safe side if you are worried.

ic

The switch that is tripping - is it an RCD (with a little test button next to it), the main switch or is it an MCB for one of the circuits in the house? (lighting, ring main, etc)

securityman

It could be a device that that comes on its self like the heating, fridge, fan or it could be a faulty MCB/RCD.

If its the MCB, i would switch off every thing on that circuit and switch them on one at the time.

If your not sure, just call in a spark.

HoolyNI

Its certainly puzzling. The only things switched on when it tripped last night were a tv, sky box, freezer, fridge and alarm.......tonight all those things and far more are on and nothing is tripping!!

I thinks its an MCB but it also has a test switch.....very rarely blows a fuse and the main culprits for causing a trip are domestic sockets, upstairs lights and garage.

securityman

Could be a RCBO.
If i was driving me mad, i would change it to see if it is faulty.

HoolyNI

Tripped again during the night, but yet doesn't trip at peak times when house is lit up like a beacon !?!

Suspect it might be an old digital clock i plugged in to replace clock on the cooker. Have removed it from the circuit but am puzzled as to why it waits till 1am to trip the socket circuit and not 7pm when about a dozen other sockets are powered up.

ormus

pull the fuse/mcb on the cooker circuit and see how you get on for a day.

stevemcol

HoolyNI wrote: »

puzzled as to why it waits till 1am to trip the socket circuit and not 7pm when about a dozen other sockets are powered up.

This is an educated guess so I'm happy to be contradicted. RCDs work on current differential (ie they compare what goes out on the live to what comes back on the neutral). Earth leakage to trip these devices is tiny. It's plausible, to me, that when the device is supplying a very small load, it may be slightly more sensitive than when saturated with heavier loads. If you appliance has earth leakage right on the threshold of the RCD, that might be an explanation.

HoolyNI

ormus wrote: »

pull the fuse/mcb on the cooker circuit and see how you get on for a day.

The 1st night it happened the cooker was actually switched off at the wall

HoolyNI

stevemcol wrote: »

This is an educated guess so I'm happy to be contradicted. RCDs work on current differential (ie they compare what goes out on the live to what comes back on the neutral). Earth leakage to trip these devices is tiny. It's plausible, to me, that when the device is supplying a very small load, it may be slightly more sensitive than when saturated with heavier loads. If you appliance has earth leakage right on the threshold of the RCD, that might be an explanation.

I hope so, will know better tonight now that i've binned the digital clock

Fuse box etc would be long overdue a health check from a spark anyway.