New kitchen keeps fusing overnight

Flora_Poste

Hello, just looking for some thoughts on this ...

The kitchen was re-done in August and two rooms were knocked together to form one big one. The whole room was rewired.

In the last couple of months the kitchen circuit has tripped, always overnight, at around midnight we think. This is a guess but it's fine when we go to bed at 11ish but it's gone off by 6.30 when we get up and the fridge/freezer displays its temperature on the door and it's lost about 8 degrees in the freezer.

It can't be a load issue cos there's hardly anything on.

In the last month the cooker has gone bust so we thought that was the problem and ordered a new one and thought no more of it. However it's tripped again this morning -two switches, the cooker circuit and the total load -so I don't know what the problem is. We haven't even got a cooker at the moment, its coming next week and the old one has gone to the tip.Any idea what it could be? Would other things be on the cooker circuit.

I've spoken to the electrician who rewired it and he was really helpful and said it was probably the cooker. But it clearly isn't now and I would like to have some other ideas. So what do you guys think?

DaftyDuck

If he didn't come back and test the circuits, he wasn't being that helpful!

I'd certainly suggest turning everything off overnight where possible, one by one, narrowing down possibilities. Also, anything whatsoever on a timer. Water softener, dishwasher or washing machine, is it a posh fridge with a daily refrost cycle, any other timer? Do you have economy 7 or any other time-variable tariff?

But, really, get the leccy back to test. Mine tested appliances during the course of a rewire.

somethingcorporate

I second the above, if he was really helpful he'd come back and correct whatever is going wrong. For all we know, it could be his substandard work!

Hintza

Plug the freezer into an extension and run to another plug and see what happens then as Dafty suggests turn every thing off and switch a different one on every night until it trips again.

sparkieguy

Is it the mcb that is tripping or an rcd?

Flora_Poste

Lol, you are right, he SEEMED really helpful and concerned but we haven't actually seen him. I've rung him again today and he's coming out tomorrow morning.

There's nothing really on overnight other than the fridge/freezer which is a couple of years old and came from the old kitchen. No timers or the like. The cooker clock used to be on but as I said, that's gone now. The central heating goes off at 10 and back on at 6.30 but it's on a separate circuit and the trip seems to happen around midnight anyway.

I'll ask him to test the circuits tomorrow and sort out isolating the fridge. Is there anything else I want him to do while he's here. What would I expect him to be doing if he's 'testing the circuits' and what would I expect him to do if he finds a problem? (other than just fix it obviously)

Sparkieguy -it's an RCD under the stairs with four switches labelled
Cooker, Sockets, and Lights and Total load on the far end.

Hope that helps. Thanks for your replies. Wish I'd posted sooner and I would have been back on his case quicker

Flora_Poste

Just remembered the new microwave has a clock as well.

sparkieguy

Total load ?? Is that written on an mcb?

It could be any of those circuits causing the problem. ..if the rcd trips then its most likely a earth-live fault
it could be your fridge causing the problem...or moisture in the backbox of a socket. Nail through cable...number of things.

get him to ramp test the rcd, it should trip at 30ma or just under but I've seen them trip on 15ma!
If thats not the problem he should do insulation resistants test on all the circuits on that rcd.

in the mean time turn the cooker breaker off...see if that makes any difference

DaftyDuck

Well, go through the kitchen with a fine -tooth comb. Unplug everything, and run the freezer from an extension lead (into which you can also plug a light (or a mechanical timer) to indicate when the circuit cuts out, if it is that. Check behind DW/WM that there's nothing running through a timeswitch. Remove anything extraneous and plug it in elsewhere if needed.

Yes, a good electrician would have come back. Mine did, after a complete rewire and a problematic wall socket. Put in new socket, ran cable differently, even though his test showed nothing. It was probably my cruddy old radio... he still spent an hour testing & sorting. However, no point not investigating everything... including Hubby/wife... not sneaking down for a midnight Pot Noodle cuppa, microwave popcorn, and fry-up, are they?

Flora_Poste

Thanks Dafty. Its just fused again which is different to the previous pattern. The kettle had just boiled fine and finished and the only other thing working was the dishwasher. I'll make a list of everything and ask him to check each one. I hadn't even thought about people sneaking down after hours but I guess that would explain where all the food goes.....

Sparkieguy it actually says (above that fourth switch) Total Load not to exceed rated current. The box is a Contactum BSEN 60439-3and the electrician has written D/B2 on top of it because the rest of the house is on the original D/B1. Not sure if that helps

forgotmyname

We had a puzzling issue with the downstairs sockets tripping out.

Wife was in the kitchen and the TV went off instantly. I knew i had switched nothing on so thought must be the kitchen.

Wife had not plugged anything in either. So got her to retrace her steps. What had she done.. Turned out to be the bulb in the fridge.
It only happend on the odd occasion but shutting the door caused the bulb to short and tripped the breakers.

Removed the bulb and it never happened again.