Posted: Mon May 12, 14 6:19 pm Post subject: leccy tripping
We live in the sitcks with and over head power supply which during the summer seems to trip the RCD switch on the fuse box fairly regularly during thundery conditions but usually OKish during the rest of the year.
Over the last 48 hours it seems to have gone mad... tripping out about 12 or more times over the day time and also during the night - we've woken to no power to the plug sockets. Whilst it has been a bit thunery lately the amount of tripping seems completely out of proportion. We've assumed that ot was due to power surges but the neighbours haven't been similarly affected.
I think we'll need to get an electrician out for a professional opinion but if any electricians out there want to profer an opinion we'd be interested to hear it..
Given the amount of rain we've had lately, I'm guessing some water is getting in somewhere?
Ours tripped today in that big thunderstorm, had to sit it out in the dark (no windows in the chiller) until it passed though.
OtleyLad
Joined: 13 Jan 2007 Posts: 2737 Location: Otley, West Yorkshire
Posted: Mon May 12, 14 6:48 pm Post subject:
An rcd will trip if the earth potential changes - can indicate some loose earth connections. You could do a visual check of any earth bonding - but don't touch anything else of course.
Is there anything touching the cable to your house? That can cause the tripping. Have you had any new electrical equipment, new light bulbs etc.? We had to run our freezer off a non -RCD supply because it kept tripping it. Nothing particularly wrong with the freezer, just kept tripping it. The socket is clearly labelled and all has been happy since.
RichardW
Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 8443 Location: Llyn Peninsular North Wales
We had to run our freezer off a non -RCD supply because it kept tripping it. Nothing particularly wrong with the freezer, just kept tripping it. The socket is clearly labelled and all has been happy since.
It has a fault & you have now gone 50% of the way to it being a deadly one. There is power leaking to earth. All that needs to happen now is for the earth to get a fault & the case will be live just waiting for you or some other unlucky bugger to touch it.
Without RCD one fault can be safe, two faults are deadly. With RCD the first fault trips it.
the best thing to do is to get the supply side folk to check their lines/tranny/earths etc and for you to get a good spark to test your lines and equipment.
your tests should not cost more than a couple of hundred quid tops but will potentially save bother,freezer contents and possibly life.
first thing you can do is a visual assessment for anything obvious,wet stuff ,scorch marks,branches,(old uncle fred's 1930's toaster etc etc )
Thanks guys. All has been fine for the last 24 hours so suspect the wet weather might have been to blame but getting a sparky to do an inspection has to be the next step..
We've already lost freezer contents during a couple of summer holidays in the past (as our neightbours have done) so i am guessing that it is partly to do with where we are and the wet conditions but would be better to check it out in case there is something amiss as well.
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