Hello
Last spring I had my kitchen rewired before having a new kitchen installed. The electrician did an electrical inspection of the house before he started any work which didn’t throw up any problems. He then removed the old consumer unit (a big white plastic box type thing) with a modern consumer unit with 2 RCDs.
RCD1 controls the electric cooker (B32), the sockets excluding the kitchen ones (B32), the sockets in the passageway at the bottom of the stairs (B20) and the upstairs lighting (B6)
RCD2 controls the kitchen sockets, the boiler/heating, downstairs lighting.
I also have a separate little consumer unit just for the electric shower (which the local council installed when my 89 year old dad lived in the house as he needed the bathroom converting to a wet room for mobility issues).
All was well for about 8 months. Then in the middle of December I came home from work to discover that RCD1 had tripped while the house was empty.
I put the switch back on and everything worked fine again until the following week when the same thing happened – same RCD1 switch. I put it back up, went to work, but it had tripped again during the day as it was down when I came back home at 5.30pm. Like before, the house had been empty all that time.
Then everything was fine for about 6 weeks until this Monday. It tripped between 8.30pm – 9.15pm when the house was empty (but lamps in the living room were on)
Then again yesterday it had tripped some time between 8am – 4.45pm when I got in from work. As before, the house had been empty all day.
Finally when we were watching TV last night it tripped again at about 10.30pm. This is the first time it had done this when the house was occupied and appliances (the TV, lamps, Humax box) were actually being used. We tried immediately to flip it up but it just kept going straight back down again. After we’d left it about 5 minutes the switch would stay up but just for about 30 seconds to a minute.
We tried to have a guess at what could be causing the RCD1 to keep tripping like it has been doing. It’s quite confusing as - until last night - the thing would trip only when the house was empty, so the lights were off, the TV was off, we weren’t using the oven etc. The only thing that has to stay on is the fridge freezer (obviously). Therefore we unplugged the fridge freezer last night and re-plugged it instead into one of the kitchen sockets (rather than the dining area socket) so that it was plugged into the ring covered by RCD2 which has not been tripping at all (so far!)
Unfortunately when we got up this morning (6th February) the RCD1 had yet again tripped so I’m guessing we can rule out the fridge freezer?
It’s just so frustrating as we can’t understand why it should be tripping so much if nothing major is being used. When my parents lived in the house they certainly never had any problems with their old unit.
Could it be that the trip itself is faulty?
I have contacted the electrician that re-wired the kitchen and installed the new unit, but I just wanted to see what you guys thought before he gets back in touch with me.
my apologies for the essay
Last spring I had my kitchen rewired before having a new kitchen installed. The electrician did an electrical inspection of the house before he started any work which didn’t throw up any problems. He then removed the old consumer unit (a big white plastic box type thing) with a modern consumer unit with 2 RCDs.
RCD1 controls the electric cooker (B32), the sockets excluding the kitchen ones (B32), the sockets in the passageway at the bottom of the stairs (B20) and the upstairs lighting (B6)
RCD2 controls the kitchen sockets, the boiler/heating, downstairs lighting.
I also have a separate little consumer unit just for the electric shower (which the local council installed when my 89 year old dad lived in the house as he needed the bathroom converting to a wet room for mobility issues).
All was well for about 8 months. Then in the middle of December I came home from work to discover that RCD1 had tripped while the house was empty.
I put the switch back on and everything worked fine again until the following week when the same thing happened – same RCD1 switch. I put it back up, went to work, but it had tripped again during the day as it was down when I came back home at 5.30pm. Like before, the house had been empty all that time.
Then everything was fine for about 6 weeks until this Monday. It tripped between 8.30pm – 9.15pm when the house was empty (but lamps in the living room were on)
Then again yesterday it had tripped some time between 8am – 4.45pm when I got in from work. As before, the house had been empty all day.
Finally when we were watching TV last night it tripped again at about 10.30pm. This is the first time it had done this when the house was occupied and appliances (the TV, lamps, Humax box) were actually being used. We tried immediately to flip it up but it just kept going straight back down again. After we’d left it about 5 minutes the switch would stay up but just for about 30 seconds to a minute.
We tried to have a guess at what could be causing the RCD1 to keep tripping like it has been doing. It’s quite confusing as - until last night - the thing would trip only when the house was empty, so the lights were off, the TV was off, we weren’t using the oven etc. The only thing that has to stay on is the fridge freezer (obviously). Therefore we unplugged the fridge freezer last night and re-plugged it instead into one of the kitchen sockets (rather than the dining area socket) so that it was plugged into the ring covered by RCD2 which has not been tripping at all (so far!)
Unfortunately when we got up this morning (6th February) the RCD1 had yet again tripped so I’m guessing we can rule out the fridge freezer?
It’s just so frustrating as we can’t understand why it should be tripping so much if nothing major is being used. When my parents lived in the house they certainly never had any problems with their old unit.
Could it be that the trip itself is faulty?
I have contacted the electrician that re-wired the kitchen and installed the new unit, but I just wanted to see what you guys thought before he gets back in touch with me.
my apologies for the essay
