Socket circuit keeps tripping...

[roy c]

Hi all I have got aproblem with my sockets circuit tripping out all the time. The fuse switch on the board wont even stay up with out tripping the main fuse box switch. My wife came home the other night and everything was off ,we have got power to lights and a couple of sockets on the cooker ring main which we are running extension leads off to all major services. I had an emergency sparkie out yesterday and charged me £45 call out fee and looked around and said he couldn't do anything and we were to take all plugs out of the sockets and undo the faces and check the neutral and live wires are connected. there is only one fuse for the whole house on this circuit and there are spurs everywhere . any ideas? Am desperate

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I had an emergency sparkie out yesterday and charged me £45 call out fee and looked around and said he couldn't do anything

What did "looking around" consist of?

Why couldn't he do anything? Did he actually try to do anything?

and we were to take all plugs out of the sockets and undo the faces and check the neutral and live wires are connected.

So you got an "electrician" out to investigate a fault, he couldn't do anything, and he told you to start checking the wiring behind the sockets?

I hope that when he asked you for his £45 you replied something along the lines of "**** off and die, you ***".

any ideas? Am desperate

Get a real electrician who is actually willing and able to do something other than look around and say "I can't do anything - you check the wiring yourself. That'll be £45 please."

 

[Chri5]

Unplug everything, everything and everything.

Reset,now does it still blow straight away? If yes, it's wiring, if no and it's stable then one of the items you unplugged is the cause.

I'm shamed that a spark charged you £45 and didnt do any testing to help identify the problem. Did he simply look around? Please expand on what he did and didn't do, any spark telling a customer to remove faceplates and DIY inspect is a cock.

Have you done any DIY recently?

Could you confirm via photo the fuse board type, the circuits on it and the type of protection? By protection is it fuses, fuses and rcd or something else?

Does the unit that fails have a test button on it?

What is the make type, size and lettering on the item?


So please find this all out and post back, we can only help with more detail.

 

[TheVictorian]

I had the same problem recently and after unplugging everything and working my way around it was the microwave causing the problem.

As soon as I plugged it in and turned it on the circuit would trip. Fixed by throwing it in the bin and buying a new one for about the price of your cowboy electrician!

 

[roy c]

Unplug everything, everything and everything.

Reset,now does it still blow straight away? If yes, it's wiring, if no and it's stable then one of the items you unplugged is the cause.

I'm shamed that a spark charged you £45 and didnt do any testing to help identify the problem. Did he simply look around? Please expand on what he did and didn't do, any spark telling a customer to remove faceplates and DIY inspect is a cock.

Have you done any DIY recently?

Could you confirm via photo the fuse board type, the circuits on it and the type of protection? By protection is it fuses, fuses and rcd or something else?

Does the unit that fails have a test button on it?

What is the make type, size and lettering on the item?


So please find this all out and post back, we can only help with more detail.

here's a link to my albums click on the one titled pics of fuse box for chri5

//www.diynot.com/network/roy c/albums/

and yes i re-built the bedroom and i and a friend broke into the ring main in the nippers room and ran it around the new room connecting it to 4 new sockets. and they have been working perfectly up until the time the electrics went off. and we have checked all the sockets in the house and none of them seem to have any faults.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

and yes i re-built the bedroom and i and a friend broke into the ring main in the nippers room and ran it around the new room connecting it to 4 new sockets. and they have been working perfectly up until the time the electrics went off.

How long ago was that?

Could you post a scan/photo of the EIC/MWC showing the test results for the altered circuit?

How come with all this building work you do you've never once met an electrician who's any good?

======= EDIT =======

Could you post a scan/photo of the IEC showing the test results for the altered circuit?

How come with all this building work you do you've never once met an electrician who's any good?

Does adding sockets to an existing ring main already protected by an RCD require an EIC?

Err...

No.

Sorry. Post edited.

 

[imroberts]

Could you post a scan/photo of the IEC showing the test results for the altered circuit?

How come with all this building work you do you've never once met an electrician who's any good?

Does adding sockets to an existing ring main already protected by an RCD require an EIC?

 

[roy c]

and yes i re-built the bedroom and i and a friend broke into the ring main in the nippers room and ran it around the new room connecting it to 4 new sockets. and they have been working perfectly up until the time the electrics went off.

How long ago was that?

Could you post a scan/photo of the IEC showing the test results for the altered circuit?

How come with all this building work you do you've never once met an electrician who's any good?

Maybe I only pretend to do building work and sit at home and give advice that I find from google..

 

[imroberts]

Chri5's advice is the best which you can follow yourself.

Unplug absolutely everything, turn the circuit back on, and see what happens. This should tell you whether it's a wiring problem or a fault with something you have plugged in.

If it's the former, you really need an electrician or someone with the right test equipment and knowledge to test the circuit and identify the fault. If the latter, you should be able to find out by plugging things in one at a time. Might be tedious and time consuming but manageable

 

[roy c]

Chri5's advice is the best which you can follow yourself.

Unplug absolutely everything, turn the circuit back on, and see what happens. This should tell you whether it's a wiring problem or a fault with something you have plugged in.

If it's the former, you really need an electrician or someone with the right test equipment and knowledge to test the circuit and identify the fault. If the latter, you should be able to find out by plugging things in one at a time. Might be tedious and time consuming but manageable

I have took everything out of the sockets and it still trips I have unscrewed every socket and checked for loose wires and tightened the screws up, It doesn't even stay up with nothing in the sockets.The guy that came around did test the ring from the box and discounted the earth and said it was a live/neutral fault

 

[imroberts]

I have took everything out of the sockets and it still trips I have unscrewed every socket and checked for loose wires and tightened the screws up, It doesn't even stay up with nothing in the sockets.The guy that came around did test the ring from the box and discounted the earth and said it was a live/neutral fault

Do you have anything else connected to that circuit? A boiler on a switched FCU, a bathroom extractor?

If you have unplugged absolutely everything and it's still tripping, it would suggest a wiring fault which will need proper testing.

 

[roy c]

Nothing else on that circuit so when you say proper testing how do you go about doing something like that? This electrician said it would be boards up and opening up spaces. I would think that you could test the circuit without all that nonsense .

 

[imroberts]

Nothing else on that circuit so when you say proper testing how do you go about doing something like that? This electrician said it would be boards up and opening up spaces. I would think that you could test the circuit without all that nonsense .

Yeh you can.

Ring circuits are a joy to work on in that you can divide them in two by disconnecting just one socket, and establish what portion of the circuit the fault lies. This can be repeated until you narrow it down to one segment of cable or one socket.

Only once you've done that would you need to potentially pull up a floorboard or something to replace a faulty cable.

There's also the possibility that your RCD is faulty and tripping at too low a current, and only when your ring main is connected is it causing the fault to show itself. Again this is easy to test with the right equipment.

 

[roy c]

We have thought about the rcd being faulty .How do you get on when splitting a ring main when there are a lot of spurs on it?

 

[imroberts]

We have thought about the rcd being faulty .How do you get on when splitting a ring main when there are a lot of spurs on it?

You need to be able to figure out which sockets are on the ring and which are spurs.

This isn't as simple as counting how many cables are in the back of them but by testing properly.

You need to get a proper electrician in