Cooker keeps tripping the electricity!

chalky_75

We have had our trusty belling cooker for about 20 years and it has always worked beautifully.

We recently had a big renovation at our house and the house was rewired. A new RCD junction box was also installed.

Since then every time I put the cooker on it trips the electricity. The hob and grill work fine. I have contacted the electricians who did the work and they say that even though the cooker worked before the refurbishment it must have a fault in the oven and as such should be replaced.
Now I do admit the cooker is old but it was still working fine and I am loathe to buy another one.

Has anyone any ideas how to solve this tripping problem
Thank You

red

Hi there,
Have you tried getting in touch with Belling? It may be a part in the cooker that needs to be replaced or fixed. Also, try a repair centre (though this will be more expensive). We have a lot of our appliances covered by DomGen and the repair centre sell all the parts for anything not covered by the policy and I am sure this is true of all repair centres working for DomGen.

MonkeyMad

If your cooker wall switch has a socket, this could be your problem. Electric ovens, especially old ones can have a lot of earth leakage. A socket on your wall switch will mean it is wired to the RCD protected side of the mainboard, which will cause lots of spurious tripping.

If your wall switch doesn't have a socket the cooker would normally be wired on the non-rcd side.

Of course it could also be that you don't have the correct capacity 'fuse' fiitted which is why it trips when the cooker is turned on.

An electrician should not just suggest you replace the cooker after they have rewired your house. The should be coming round to see what the problem may be.

victor2

RCDs can be a bit "over sensitive". Electric irons generally last about a year or two with us before they start tripping the RCD. Different brands each time, doesn't seem to matter. Of course, it's relatively easy to just buy a new iron rather than investigate the problem.

Worth trying to contact Belling. They might know what it is, and what you need to fix it, or they could just say it's an inherent problem with that cooker and there's no easy fix.
As MonkeyMad says though, the electrician should at least come and see what the problem may be.

zax47

Its probably an ageing (and thus potentially electrically "leaky") oven heating element causing the RCD to trip - wouldn't have mattered with an old (non-RCD) fuse box. Google to find replacement element for your oven, usually a straightforward DIY job to change it. Loads of folks on here have done it, do a search for more info. There are even YouTube videos showing you what to do....... {Thus spake an electrician}

baldelectrician

I agree with ZAX

It's easy to point and say 'it worked before' but the fact that it is tripping with the cooker and not tripping with other things means the cooker probably needs a new eleiment

Remeber the RCD is doing its job- it is set to trip when the touch voltage gets close to 50V (this is deemed to be a potentially fatal dose).

chalky_75

Hello
Thanks for all your comments. I would agree it may be the oven heating element,but obviously I would have to change it to see if that was the cause. However with the earth leakage, is that repairable. We have the main cable from the cooker going into a fused box in a neighbouring cupboard. There is no socket at this junction but from there the wiring goes to the RCD motherboard. If it is earth leakage can this be fixed within this set up.
Thanks again for your interest.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

Hi, I had the same problem with a Secondhand Cooker gotten from the British Heart Foundation.
Replacing it with a brand new model solved the problem.
Mine tripped so much that I was forced into using Microwave and Slow Cooker to cook all my food instead of as viable OS options.
Since I got my old cooking faccilities back I have been cooking on the stove like no tommorow. At least I can now choose to opt for OS solutions to save on electric which is ever more exploitative due to the policies of the Energy Companies.

keystone

chalky_75 wrote: »

However with the earth leakage, is that repairable...................... If it is earth leakage can this be fixed within this set up.

An RCD is a Residual Curent Device. You have a current leak and the only way to fix that is to repair / replace the electrical device which is doing it - which in your case is likely to be your element. That leakage was almost certainly present before the new CU was installed its just that now you have the new one with the RCD its being detected. As has been observed the RCD is doing it's job which is to protect you. You need to change the element if that is the cause which is the most likely.

Cheers

chalky_75

Thanks again all of you and Keystone for the last explanation

Ben84

keystone wrote: »

An RCD is a Residual Curent Device. You have a current leak and the only way to fix that is to repair / replace the electrical device which is doing it - which in your case is likely to be your element. That leakage was almost certainly present before the new CU was installed its just that now you have the new one with the RCD its being detected. As has been observed the RCD is doing it's job which is to protect you. You need to change the element if that is the cause which is the most likely.

Cheers

I was thinking a bad element too, as it has happened to a few cookers of mine before. I hadn't realised however that it could be dangerous, so that's good to know. Presumably, if the electricity is leaking to ground, the cooker is wasting energy and becoming slower to heat up too?