Re: Electricals

it's worth it for your peace of mind, hope you get it fixed soon

Re: Electricals

Get a spark Mups it will give you peace of mind, probably nothing more than a surge if you had a load on the circuit, but could have been a tempoary short that may have cleared itself so you could reset it. they are fast to trip on purpose good devices,depending on age could be MCB, ELCB or RCD. It should have a test button, if you press it it should trip, if not could be a dodgy device.

Simple test with a continuity tester will confirm the circuit is ok, and then the devices that were plugged in at the time. The spark should have a trip tester that will confirm your device is operating within the specified limits.

Re: Electricals

Don't worry about it.
This happens all the time here, and if you look up any electrical forums, or Google 'RCD tripping', you will find that every man and his dog experiences random or nuisance RCD trips. In the vast majority of cases, the cause is never found, and can even be caused by events outwith your property. Halogen light bulbs often cause RCD trips if they fail.

Reset the trip. There are two types of trip - the MCB which is there to prevent overloads, and the RCD which is not there to prevent fire, so don't listen to scare stories. It detects an imbalance between the current in the live and neutral lines and is there primarily to prevent electric shocks from faulty devices. Note that some appliances are 'leaky' by their nature, but are perfectly safe.

Only if you are unable to reset the trip or the tripping becomes more more frequent, do you need to call a sparkie.

Re: Electricals

How do you 'reset' a trip George? Do you mean just push the switch up again?
I did that and it has stayed up, but not happy incase it means I was about to get an electric shock from something I didn't know about. I was ironing at the time and I'm wondering if there is a fault with my iron?
Just rung an electrician this morning to check it out, he's coming around 10.30am so will let you know what happens.
Thanks for all the help everyone.

Re: Electricals

Good advice from Grumblewagon Mups, he knows what he is taking about.
Iron's use a lot of current, and your circuit was probably at it's limit, when the thermostat on the iron kicked in it temporarily overloaded your trip. the fact that it stayed 'in' when you reset it meant that the circuit had returned to normal, otherwise you would not have been able to reset it.
Very interested to see what sparkie says though...
hope it's not too costly...

Re: Electricals

Anything can make a circuit trip, even a light bulb packing up can do it or even plugging in an electrical appliance. Not like the old days when all you did was wrap a thicker bit of fuse wire around the fuse block terminal and hoped for the best. The cause of your could have even been a slight difference in power supply if they bring another power station on line.

The time to really check things out if it won't reset. In our kennels if a heat lamp "blew" it would throw the trip.

Re: Electricals

Majority of times that it's happened to me, it was caused by a halogen bulb failing. At least I knew what it was and this is a known issue.

If you need a bit of reassurance, then get things checked out, but in general, this is just something that happens from time to time. Even dodgy street lighting has been implicated in some cases. I don't think that you're in any danger at all, the trip is there to protect you. I've had my RCD tripping 2 or 3 times in a row, and then being OK for a year.
It is a very common problem, and like most random things, it's often difficult to pin down the cause.

Re: Electricals

Mine kept tripping once Mups and I found out it was my iron. Every time I turned it on a little while later it tripped the switch and things went out. I had to buy a new iron as mine had become faulty.

Re: Electricals

Thanks a lot George, I'll let you know what the man says. He said 10.30 but he hasn't turned up yet.

Re: Electricals

Any update?