New oven tripping electric

Xpoppyxx

I have am having issues with my oven tripping my electric. Its a stand alone electric oven with hob. The oven is hardwired into the wall so I can't just unplug it. Basically after say 1 hour of use the oven will trip the RCD in the fuse box. Its only when I turn the oven off at the mains that I can turn the power back on at the fuse. I'm not sure exactly how the electrics are wired but the outlet that the oven is hard wired to is also connected to the kitchen lights and multiple plugs in the kitchen.

I did have another electric oven previously (only a couple of months old). Within weeks of having the first oven the problems started with it tripping the electric after only 20 minutes of use. I call the manufacture and they sent someone out to replace the fuse. It was OK for maybe a week then it did it again, this time it was a hob at fault. If i turned the oven off and let it cool down it would work again but if i ever used the front right hob plate it would always trip the electric. Again the manufacturer sent out an engineer out and they replaced the hob plate... couple of days later it was tripping the electric again. I suffered with it for a couple of months before it became unbareable as I was never able to make a full meal without it tripping the electric. So I contacted the manufacturer and this time they removed the oven and gave me a different model.

All seemed OK for a couple of weeks until again the electric started to trip. This time it would work for 1 hour then it would trip and wouldn't reset until the oven has completely cooled. This is again a brand new oven. Now I'm confused as to whether there is a problem with my house electrics and I'm not sure what to do. 1 hour seems like enough time to be able to cook a meal, however I shouldn't have to limp along with an oven that is constantly tripping my electric. I've tried turning everything on the same circuit off however after 1 hour the oven still trips and I'm genuinely stuck on who I should be contacting.

I rent my home through a housing association... so should I be contacting the oven manufacturer again or the housing association? 

Any help would be much appreciated.

Myser

You need to have the RCD tested by an electrician.  It could be faulty or you might have high leakage from other appliances connected to the same circuit and with the oven it's enough to trip the RCD.

https://www.electricalcompetentperson.co.uk/

The electrician should also be able to test the oven.

Is there a lot of liquid in the items that you cook and does any spill over?

Alter_ego

Kitchen lights, sockets,and oven on same circuit?

grumbler

Alter_ego said:

Kitchen lights, sockets,and oven on same circuit?

The same RCD. Why not?

Doozergirl

grumbler said:

Alter_ego said:

Kitchen lights, sockets,and oven on same circuit?

The same RCD. Why not?

Our electrician talks in such language that he thinks everyone is an electrician, which means I know very little about electrics, but I do know that cookers are very likely to overload any circuit and should have their own RCD and that's been practice for as long as I've been doing this renovating malarky.  

If a new cooker is tripping the electrics then my automatic assumption is that the ring main can't cope with the draw on it.  I'm surprised that the manufacturer hadn't suggested it immediately. 

Either way, the electrics are either insufficient or faulty as you've suggested.  

grumbler

I have only one RCD in my consumer unit and it's 63A - more than enough for the hob and the oven (both electric).

Alanp

I believe that if an rcd is constantly having to be reset this can weaken it so it trips out more easily, it seems like you need an electrician to check your circuit, as you’ve had the oven replaced it’s unlikely it’s the appliances, more the circuit or it’s components 

Ectophile

The chances are that you have too many "leaky" appliances on one RCD and/or an over-sensitive RCD.  That's difficult to fix without the services of an electrician.

Each appliance is allowed to leak a tiny current to Earth.  That includes ovens, where the heating element is encased in an earthed metal tube, and a bit of current can leak fron the element to the tube.

An RCD is required to trip once the leakage current reaches 30mA, but in practice will trip lower than that; maybe only 20mA.  You can have a situation where one appliance is fine, but turn on too many at once and the leakage exceeds the limit for that RCD.

Xpoppyxx

Myser said:

You need to have the RCD tested by an electrician.  It could be faulty or you might have high leakage from other appliances connected to the same circuit and with the oven it's enough to trip 

The electrician should also be able to test the oven.

Is there a lot of liquid in the items that you cook and does any spill over?

Thanks for this. I wouldn't say there is alot of liquid in what I cook. The last time it tripped I was cooking a roast dinner. So there is of course some steam but nothing I would consider to be excessive. There is certainly no liquid involved when the hot plates trip the electric though... I will contact my housing association today and hopefully come up with some kind of solution.

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. Seems like getting an electrician out has got to be my first point of call

Jeepers_Creepers

As said by others, if it's an RCD that's tripping, that's an earth leakage fault and not circuit 'overload'. (I am as surprised as others that a single MCB is protecting everything in the kitchen, tho' - lights on a - what? - 32A MCB?!)

Ovens can be pretty bad in general for doing this - as Acto says, the elements are prone to leaking a wee bit, especially if they are heading towards failure. (The first time that happened to me, I'd dismantled most of the oven looking for earthed wires before someone online pointed out what I actually had to do - replace an element...)

It doesn't mean the oven is 'faulty' as such, just that it's leaking possibly fractionally too much. But there could be other 'leaks' on completely different circuits, all building up towards the ~30mA limit; it's just the oven's poor luck to seemingly be the one to push it over the edge.

I think what you can say is that it's a 'house wiring' issue and not your oven per se, and if that is the responsibility of the Housing Assoc, then give them a call first.

(I had such an issue recently - not actually 'resolved', tho' it hasn't occurred for a few weeks - where my RCD would trip in the early hours. Absolutely nothing was related to its cause - not CH, not early morning kettle, nothing. Usually I could reset the RCD right away and it would stay on, but one time it snapped off again. So I started turning off circuits one at a time, starting with the most obvious candidates - the oven. Nope, no difference. Outside lights? Yup! The RCD stays on now! Later, I turn the outside lights MCB back on to carry out some checks - hmmm, the rear LED flood isn't working. Hmmmmm - the FRONT LED flood an't working! Argh - the inside porch light - on the same circuit - ain't working. Rats - must be a break in the wire in the loft - a squirrel, perhaps? I put the search off as I didn't fancy crawling through the eaves in search of a chewed cable, or meeting up with a rodent with a pair of wire cutters. Then I noticed that the rear flood was glimmering when it was dark - it was getting power, but the LED cluster had failed (it was only bludy 2 months old...) BUT! What about the other two lights - surely not?! Yup - both had also failed - one inside and one outside! The wiring was actually ok - sorry squirrel - and new lights/bulbs sorted it. Sooo easy to be led astray in the wrong direction...)

jsmith9

Because the fault still persists when you have changed your oven and Hob, then that would point to the fact that it's not them that are at fault

this leaves the wiring circuitry or the RCD or other items connected to the same circuit

you should probably start by changing the RCD for a new one and see if that solves the problem