Lighting, Boiler, Advice needed from Electrician please

wssb

Hi, please bear with me in this post as I'm not the best with electrics.

A few weeks ago our Lights started tripping in the house. We had the old fashioned wire fuses which my hubby kept changing but the lights would never stay on for longer than a few minutes. After changing them several times, they wouldn't come on at all.

At this point an electrician came out and got our lights back on, he thought the lights originally went out because of a faulty lightfitting. He advised that a new fuse box is better and safer. We got this installed last week as we have a 2 year old and wanted safer for her sake.

All was fine until this morning, our lights wouldn't come on and the switch in the box won't come back up when my husband tried. He had the power going on and off, not sure if that was him or the fuse box though as he has left for work now. Now our boiler won't come back on but all electricals except the lights are working. All switches except the one for the lights are back down on the box, that switch just won't go down.

Also, this happened through the night when all our lights were off. Does that mean it may not be our lights that are the problem?

Any help would be hugely appreciated as we have no money to get an electrician in, and now have no lights or boiler, and a toddler.

Thanks x

southcoastrgi

you need to find out what is tripping the fuse, do you have a switched spur that is by the boiler or in the airing cupboard that turns off the boiler/heating system ? if you do turn this off, turn off all the lights & try to re-set the fuse, if this works then go around switching the lights on & off & see if the fuse trips, if all ok then turn the boiler back on if this trips the fuse then that's the problem, the boiler/heating shouldn't be wired to the lighting circuit but it wouldn't be the first time i've seen it

you also need to check that the lights & the boiler aren't the only things not working as it could be something else you haven't thought of

wssb

Thanks I will try what you have suggested. Much appreciated.

Mankysteve

Pretty much as south coast says turn all the lights off and start trowing switches til the fuse box trips.

I_have_spoken

Rodent damage to wires will also cause trips on consumer unit.

muckybutt

I have known cable melt from the consumer keeping trying to reset the mcb.

If you have tried it several times then leave it at that and get a qualified electrician to test the circuit and find the root cause of the fault.

I am not scaremongering but repeated switching and tripping of the mcb could cause the mcb to fail as well as cause a fire. You said yourself you are not good with electrics - so leave it to those that do !

27col

Getting a new consumer unit fitted is not fixing the problem. Getting the faulty light fitting or wiring fixed is fixing the problem.
The electrician should have explained this to you at the time

fluffpot

I think you need to get the electrician back. It doesn't look like he's fixed the original problem, just changed the board. He should have tested the electrics fully before fitting the new consumer unit and have picked up and rectified any faults. I would not be paying him/her for this return visit as it should be been sorted as part of the original job.

Are the boiler and lights on the same circuit? The new consumer unit should be labelled to tell you, along with the certificates he/she gave you