Electric keeps tripping - possibly found source

silvercar

Downstairs circuit has tripped a few times today. Each time when only background items were switched on.

I turned off the outside light as a guess, but it isn’t that. How do I work out which one? It is the main downstairs ring main, so kitchen appliances, TVs, cable boxes, router, microwave, fridge freezer. Problem is that it can be a couple of hours between tripping, so I don’t know how to narrow it down. 

grumbler

There is only one way - elimination. You can do this one by one, but it's probably easier to do by groups first.

If you can't find the culprit, make sure that it still happens when everything is unplugged. In this case the problem is with wiring and, most likely, you need an electrician.

silvercar

Can an extension cable be a problem in itself?

we turned one room off at a time and it was still tripping until we turned the lounge off. All we have in there is:

sofa electric seat controls
an extension socket with TV, cable box and Recorder. 

Put them back one at a time it didn’t trip until the TV and recorder were on the extension lead with the sofa control on the other side of the room. Recorder was in standby mode, so shouldn’t be drawing much power.

slight unknown is that it took half an hour to trip. Half an hour was a long time as it was starting to trip every few minutes. So I’m guessing something is overheating. Could be TV or extension cable? If that is possible.

macman

Start with the white goods: dishwasher, w/m, tumble drier, electric hob or oven if not on a separate cooker circuit.
Is it tripping an MCB or an RCD?

silvercar

Tripping an RCD.

none of the white goods are switched on.

silvercar

To be clear. It was tripping more and more frequently, until we switched off the lounge when it stopped. Switched lounge items back on and it waited half an hour before tripping. 

Does this suggest over heating?

I think we’ve ruled out the sofa control, so I’m left with one extension cable with the 3 items mentioned above. so it could be individual items or the combination.

victor2

If it's tripping an RCD, it could be the extension, or one of the items plugged in. 
At least you've narrowed it down to one room. All you can do is continue the process of elimination. If you've got another extension lead you can use, it's worth trying to see if the problem goes away.
RCDs are very sensitive, but it's good to be protected!

Ectophile

There's always the possibility that it's just too many appliances on one RCD.  It used to be common to have one RCD for all the sockets in a house, and perhaps a few other things such as a shower.

But electronic appliances are allowed to leak a little bit of current to earth.  Which is OK until you have too many plugged in at once.  Our modern homes are stuffed full of electronic gadgets, and it's possible that plugging in one too many is enough to trip the RCD.  It won't make much difference if they are on standby or switched on.  It's the filters on the power supplies that cause the leakage.

The only solution to that problem is a new consumer unit, or replace all the breakers in the existing one with RCBOs, if you can get ones that fit the existing consumer unit.

grumbler

Ectophile said:

The only solution to that problem is a new consumer unit,

There can be enough space for a second RCD in the existing CU.

diystarter7

Hi
Its most likely an appliance
Trial and error but I'm very confident its an appliance of type
Thanks

silvercar

And it’s gone again. back to square 1.