Mystery electrical problem

[Alec_t]

It's just possible your fire had a suppression capacitor which initially failed short-circuit, tripping the breaker but also blowing itself into an open-circuit state in the process. In that state the PAT test probably wouldn't have registered a fault. An inspection of the fire interior might confirm this theory.

 

[winston1]

The provisional plan at the moment is to have the electrical safety test done in the new year which should pinpoint the problem, if it's there. Since it's out of date

It's not. Read post no 2.

 

[RainbowLaura]

It's not. Read post no 2.

Although it was only tested in 2014, it does say "retest due April 2019" though. It would be nice to at least have it in date (maybe even for things like insurance, if something did end up going very wrong... catastrophising again maybe but that's how my brain works )

 

[winston1]

Although it was only tested in 2014, it does say "retest due April 2019" though. It would be nice to at least have it in date (maybe even for things like insurance, if something did end up going very wrong... catastrophising again maybe but that's how my brain works )

Tradesman have been known to write untruths. Especially if it brings them extra business in the future. Read post 2 again.

 

[RainbowLaura]

Tradesman have been known to write untruths. Especially if it brings them extra business in the future. Read post 2 again.

Hmm, I see what you're saying... our electrician thought more along the lines of, something may have been picked up before that made them think it should be tested again in 5 years. Annoyingly we never got the report from the previous owners.

Would your recommended course of action be to skip straight to fault finding? Or maybe leave it and hope that it just won't happen again? The additional cost of the safety test is something we could do without really if it's not going to be helpful or worthwhile at the moment.

 

[winston1]

I would open up the fire and see what happened.

 

[RainbowLaura]

Ok, have opened it up to have a look. The only thing that didn't look right to me was burnt crispy stuff just underneath the bulbs, but that could have been from a year ago when one of the bulbs did shatter inside:

Here is the full setup:

Bottom left:

Bottom right:

Right side:

Heating element at the top, which has barely ever been used (most recently about 18 months ago:

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Does any of this give any clues, or is there anywhere I should be looking a bit deeper?

Thanks again for your time, I am so grateful.

 

[Alec_t]

If this is an unsheathed wire going under a metal bracket ....

.... the insulation could be damaged, causing an intermittent short.

 

[RainbowLaura]

If this is an unsheathed wire going under a metal bracket ....
the insulation could be damaged, causing an intermittent short.

Thank you, I'll see if I can have a closer look at that tomorrow.

 

[RainbowLaura]

I opened up the little bracket, and another one the same the other side, but nothing looks damaged in there either (to my very untrained eye)

Perhaps the socket/house wiring is to blame after all...

 

[scousespark]

Hmm, I see what you're saying... our electrician thought more along the lines of, something may have been picked up before that made them think it should be tested again in 5 years. Annoyingly we never got the report from the previous owners.

Would your recommended course of action be to skip straight to fault finding? Or maybe leave it and hope that it just won't happen again? The additional cost of the safety test is something we could do without really if it's not going to be helpful or worthwhile at the moment.

The last test is irrelevant. It would make no sense to recommend a test in 5 years to create work, it is much more likely the test showed something the inspector was worried about.

Your electrician has found something of concern in your fixed wiring (not related to your fire). You should let him carry out an inspection. As for stripping down the fire, that is not something an electrician would be expected to do during a PAT.

 

[RainbowLaura]

The last test is irrelevant. It would make no sense to recommend a test in 5 years to create work, it is much more likely the test showed something the inspector was worried about.

Your electrician has found something of concern in your fixed wiring (not related to your fire). You should let him carry out an inspection. As for stripping down the fire, that is not something an electrician would be expected to do during a PAT.

This is what I feared... it sounds like failing to get the report when we purchased may have been an expensive lesson! My brain is now jumping to conclusions about having to rip the kitchen out if the fault is in there somewhere

 

[sparkwright]

I'm more than certain it won't come to that.

 

[Stay Frosty]

You could always hurl the fire down the garden and fit a new one?

Given that it was the fire that caused all this stress I would probably do that anyway out of rage however it sounds like you're going to have an EICR performed in the New Year so minus this appliance you should hopefully get decent ZS and R1+R2 readings, as an aside I've just had one of these performed here as we're selling the house but chatting with the sparky during the test he let me swap out two twin skts that both gave two different loop impedance/ZS readings between outlets on the same skt plate... cheap and cheerful/shonky CED skts about 6 yrs old!.. plastic 17th edition consumers unit was the only C3 then.

Edit and that crusty stuff under the bulb was probably the red tint laquer that these lamps often have to produce a firey glow effect when illuminated?