Quick question about electric cooker?

Ben84

Careful_with_that_Axe wrote: »

Well, it's all gone bluddy wrong. If you put on any more than one ring on the cooker, it trips the circuit, so cooker is obviously faulty as the wiring has been checked and is fine.
I've made myself skint for nothing ad have to go through the hassle of trying to get my money back through ebay before I can get another cooker.
I'm normally a pretty upbeat sortta person, but this has got to me big stylee. I had really got myself all excitipated and I was looking forward to some warming stews.

I have no doubt that the sellers had no idea the cooker was faulty, so hope they haven't gone and spent the money I bought it with. It wasn't that much money but to me was an absolute fortune that I had saved up.

Ah well, onwards and upwards and hope I'm soon back with a smile and cooking facilities.

I'm not so convinced it must be the cooker. Sometimes when you get a bad electric element turning that specific one on blows the fuse/breaker immediately or after a short while, but this is only when you turn on more than one element rather than a specific element? If you can have one element on for as long as you want, that electric element is I suspect entirely fine.

Anyway, if they work independently and the total amps are below the circuit breaker and cable rating, they should also work fine at the same time, so I think you might have a bad circuit breaker rather than a bad cooker.

I'd call the electrician back out. He should have put the installation to the test by switching all the elements on at the same time and seen if there was a problem. Not saying he's a bad electrician, it might be an intermittent fault that didn't show up at the time, but the fact is he wired this appliance in and it hasn't worked right yet so he should return to look at it again as a call back. He may discover your cooker is broken, or maybe the breaker, but you should hopefully know which.

Careful_with_that_Axe

Cooker would work if only the oven was on or if only one ring was on; anything more than that blew the fuse. Is that what you mean? I'm tired and not quite taking in what you're saying.
2 rings blew it, grill blew it, virtually any combination of things blew it.

Careful_with_that_Axe

p.s. Sorry, how rude of me - thank you for trying to help.

Electrician came from Care and Repair - a Council-subsidised professional agency for people with various problems, so they are very good about coming back regarding any queries, I know their certification is up to date, that their public laibility is in place and they are affordable for me at £15 an hour.
He disengaged all the wiring before he left as I knew I would be tempted to try to use the cooker even though it was unsafe. He refused to leave it wired in, quite rightly.

To check the circuit breaker, would it be a case of swapping that fuse in the fuse box for one of the same rating and seeing if the replacement blew as well?

fluffpot

First up - bad luck

You need to find out if it's the fuse/circuit breaker that's tripping - you told us it was 30 or 32 Amps, so it can't be being over loaded and likely to be a short circuit - and presumably the original owners would also have had this problem.

OR as your house is new you may have an RCD (type of circuit breaker, but looks a bit different) and this might be tripping - it indicates a different type of fault and if the original owners didn't have this in their fuse board it would have worked fine for them. Worth asking your sparks to advise you as this might help you get your money back

Good luck

Oh and to answer your question above, then yes - you could try a new fuse/breaker, but TBH its unusual for a breaker to be faulty....

Careful_with_that_Axe

Yes, house has an RCD. Cooker hadn't been used by previous owners for a while and had been in storage so I wonder if inappropriate storing may have caused a fault somehow? It does have some rust on a scratch down the side and the rings are slightly rusted.

My take on it is that I bought the cooker on the understanding it worked. When I try to turn it on, it won't work (i.e. the fuse blows). I no longer have the time or the money to do lengthy investigations into the whys and wherefores so would like my money back. Maybe I'm looking at it too simplistically as I am tired and, perhaps, looking for a way out.