main electricity switch tripping

Will.ii.am

About 30 minutes ago the main electricity switch went off, i thought it was a bulb but on an inspection the cause seems to be the landing light wall switches, if you switch the main electricity switch back on and then switch one of the wall switches on (there is three of them) it trips straight away. I'm thinking its the earth in the circuit or could it be something else?? any help would be appreciated because its dam dark walking up and down the stairs! but if the fix is not easy i'll have to phone the letting agent.

waynehayes

Have you recently had a new consumer unit fitted?

Will.ii.am

no,we've only been in the house for just over a month, i believe its been stood empty for approx 2 years before we moved in.

keystone

Landlord's problem to hire a sparks and get it fixed.

Cheers

Will.ii.am

This is what i was thinking, just making sure i havn't missed anything simple before i phone the agent on monday.

gas4you

Something is going to earth. Unplug everything with a motor or heating element and try again, eg. Kettle fridge etc

Will.ii.am

gas4you wrote: »

Something is going to earth. Unplug everything with a motor or heating element and try again, eg. Kettle fridge etc

will the kettle,fridge etc have anything to do with the landing light switches??

YorkshireBoy

You need to be clear as to what's tripping. You say it's the "main switch", therefore you must have an RCD as the main switch?...because main switches are generally just that, ie just a switch offering no fault protection.

Or do you mean the MCB, ie one of several in the consumer unit?

Will.ii.am

Yes it says RCCB above it, but it does have a test button next to it.

DVardysShadow

Will.ii.am wrote: »

Yes it says RCCB above it, but it does have a test button next to it.

Ten it is an earth leakage trip. So you have an earth fault. LL needs to get a sparks on the case.