Dodgy Electrics - has anyone come accross this before?

Pineapple88 · 22 August 2019 at 11:32PM

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping the clever people on here will be able to shed some light on a problem I'm having with my electrics.

I woke up this morning to find that me electricity had gone off overnight. The lights were working so no problem with the supply but most other things were off (strangely some plug sockets still worked). None of the fuses had tripped.

Nothing was on overnight other than the fridge and things on standby.

I checked that it hadn't been caused by an appliances and they all seemed fine. Called an electrician who confirmed that the fuse box was fine and there was power to all of the fuses. He checked the wires in one of the plugs and said that there was a break in the neutral wire and this is what had caused the loss of power. He said he would have to find it and fix it. He had to leave to go and finish another job and said he would come back later in the day.

A few hours later my electricity came back on of its own accord. The electrician came back and confirmed that the neutral circuit was now fine. Understandably he couldn't tell me what had caused the problem and was of the opinion that if its not broken don't fix it. I am wondering what caused it though. Has anyone experienced similar problems? Is the problem likely to reoccur?

Any help much appreciated :A

jk0 · 23 August 2019 at 7:59AM

It's a bad contact!

You definitely need to find it, as it will start sparking and getting hot if you plug a fire in this winter.

Just turn off the juice, and take each socket front off one by one, and make sure the wires are firmly connected.

FTA: There are likely to be two sockets with dodgy connections, as sockets are normally wired in a ring. Make sure you find both.

Ant555 · 23 August 2019 at 9:00AM

If troubleshooting - maybe start with any sockets that are more frequently used.

It may be coincidence, but I had a loose wire once and it turned out to be a socket that had stuff plugged in and out all of the time.

Pineapple88 · 23 August 2019 at 10:30AM

jk0 wrote: »

It's a bad contact!

You definitely need to find it, as it will start sparking and getting hot if you plug a fire in this winter.

Just turn off the juice, and take each socket front off one by one, and make sure the wires are firmly connected.

FTA: There are likely to be two sockets with dodgy connections, as sockets are normally wired in a ring. Make sure you find both.

Thanks JK0. My electrician said that my fuse box doesn't have a ring wire. Does this change anything?

I have a gas fire so won't need to plug an electric fire in but is there the risk that it could overheat from general usage and start a fire?

jk0 · 23 August 2019 at 10:40AM

Oh, well even a telly might cause sparking. Yes, you need to find the fault. It's not difficult, just time consuming. That is why your electrician can't be arsed.

FreeBear · 23 August 2019 at 11:02AM

jk0 wrote: »

You definitely need to find it, as it will start sparking and getting hot if you plug a fire in this winter.

Sis had a similar problem with her electric shower. Ir stopped working one day, and then started again a day or so later. I initially thought it might have been a dirty contact in the switch. When I finally got to look at it a couple of weeks later, it turned out one of the cables had come loose inside the main on/off switch. The switch was all melted inside and had been very close to causing a fire.

Do not take risks with electrics - Electrical faults can and do cause fires.

Pineapple88 · 23 August 2019 at 3:00PM

Thanks everyone. Its happened again but strangely sockets that went off yesterday are still working and sockets that were unaffected yesterday have gone off today. There's no logic to it. It happened whilst I was out of the house and so wasn't caused by an appliance being plugged in or turned on which makes it difficult to narrow down what is causing the problem. The electrician is coming back next week but it sounds like it could be a big job :eek:

I might see if I can look at the wires this weekend. Electrics scare me though - I don't want to make anything worse!

edgex · 23 August 2019 at 3:02PM

Fuse box ?
Are you still on fuses, or is it RCDs?

TELLIT01 · 23 August 2019 at 3:10PM

Electricians often have a piece of kit which will indicate how far the problem is from where they have plugged their kit in. That gives them a start point.
We had a problem when the ring main was extended for a new conservatory. We hadn't had a problem prior to their work, but the fault appeared in an area they hadn't touched. Situation there turned out to be that the previous occupant had put multiple spurs onto the circuit rather than connecting properly to the ring. Once that part was sorted everything was fine.

Pineapple88 · 23 August 2019 at 3:11PM

edgex wrote: »

Fuse box ?
Are you still on fuses, or is it RCDs?

There are 2 RCD's.

What's the difference? I've always just referred to it as a fuse box.

ka7e · 23 August 2019 at 6:48PM

2 RCDs means not all circuits will trip at once. The fact that both have tripped independently sounds worrying!

Dodgy Electrics - has anyone come accross this before?

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