Tripping RCD

[Murdochcat]

Hi
Not that I'm aware of. It was middle of the night. Heard a noise...looked at my bedside alarm clock and it was off, as was the whole house.
I really thought we had sorted it. I may have to bite the bullet and pay for the downstairs sockets to be rewired.
Jan

The whole house can’t of been off

Don’t waste money getting sockets rewired unless somebody proves this is the answer

I would go for a new cu with RCBOs and SPD then you’ll narrow down the issue or possibly eradicate it

 

[JohnD]

In the night, not many things are running. Might have been fridge. Or rainwater. Or immersion heater. Or outdoor lighting.

 

[Risteard]

I wonder what the noise was !

If you do have any electrical work done,
ask for a quote on the extra cost of having
the RCD (Residual Current Device) on your Consumer Unit removed and
the MCBs (Miniature Circuit Breakers) "protected" by this RCD
replaced by
RCBOs (Residual Current circuit Breaker with Overcurrent protection.)

As a "guide", the cost of each RCBO itself should be between about £15 and £20
(Of course, "labor" will be extra.)

Having RCBOs on each circuit will make it much easer to determine on which circuit any "leakage" exists.


As a side issue, if you have any "equipment" replaced,
the equipment which has been replaced is still your property.

The person replacing it should
advise you of this,
and
offer to "return" it to you'.

You may then request that the installer disposes of the replaced equipment
but
that is up to you to decide.


Maybe so.

Most makes of RCBO are much more expensive than £15. £30-35 would be a much more accurate guess.

 

[Murdochcat]

Most makes of RCBO are much more expensive than £15. £30-35 would be a much more accurate guess.

Not in the UK they aren’t

 

[Jevban]

Thanks all...there was a suspended floor but long time ago expensive flooring was laid with x 2 lots of panels to raise the floor and then full screed!!!
I've currently put my fridge freezer on an extension and running it off my sockets upstairs. It seems to last a couple of days then trips again. Last outage before last night was Wednesday.

 

[ericmark]

In the night, not many things are running. Might have been fridge. Or rainwater. Or immersion heater. Or outdoor lighting.

That was also my thought, I have looked at this picture and to the right that looks like a smart meter, but there is also a meter above the isolator, I also have two meters, one smart and the other to measure solar export. I also see a RCD at top of picture, this

and this

have me wondering what is in the home, and if we have other things switching on at night?

I have been monitoring my own upright freezer the spikes are when it auto defrosts, 29-7, 2, 6, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19 and 22 of August, so every 2 to 3 days. If the heater was faulty for auto defrost, it would seem rather random as to when it trips, and resetting in the morning, could mean next defrost happens at night.

I am sure there is solar as it shows this

so could the inverter be leaking DC and freezing the RCD in the day, so it will only trip at night? I note type AC RCD.

If some thing easy the electricians would have found it, so looking for some thing less obvious, I have tried measuring DC leakage, the clamp-on has to be zeroed with DC, and change orientation just slightly and one gets an erroneous reading, I could not easy measure 6 mA, at 60 mA OK reasonably sure good reading, +/- 10 mA, but at 6 mA DC my clamp-on meter is a bit hit and miss.

Be interesting to hear how others in the trade get on at measuring DC leakage. AC my clamp-on meter is great, down to 1 mA, but DC using the hall effect it is a little hit and miss.

My inverter says it is OK with a type AC RCD, but that does not mean all are.

What do you think, all I can say glad it is not my problem to sort out.

 

[ericmark]

I've currently put my fridge freezer on an extension and running it off my sockets upstairs. It seems to last a couple of days then trips again. Last outage before last night was Wednesday.

Looking at your consumer unit it seems both up and down stairs use the same RCD, so that will not really help.

 

[sparkwright]

Thanks all...there was a suspended floor but long time ago expensive flooring was laid with x 2 lots of panels to raise the floor and then full screed!!!
I've currently put my fridge freezer on an extension and running it off my sockets upstairs. It seems to last a couple of days then trips again. Last outage before last night was Wednesday.

So are you saying there are cables under all of that lot?

 

[Jevban]

Hi
I'll try to answer different points raised
I don't have a smart meter it's a generation meter for my solar panels...
Re the CU...I'm going to have it upgraded to one with RCBOs
Re the floor....God only knows... there may have been wiring under the floor boards but definitely not in the crawl space under that...
One of the electricians contacted me to say it's keeping him up at night and he is trying to work through a solution for me to avoid what might be the dodgy wall where testing suggests the problem is....he needs to install the new CU first...given the cost so far, that's an option I can run with !
Re the spiking of the fridge...that's interesting as sometimes this trips in the day, other times in the dead of night and it's every 2-3 days s,!!!
You have all been more helpful than you know...it's all beyond me. I can keep up until it gets technical...then I'm back in my box
Again
Thank you all for your help.

 

[Murdochcat]

you could be suffering from accumulated Earth leakage

 

[Jevban]

Hi
Accumulated earth leakage? Can this just come on with no previous issues?
Sorry for the beyond basic question, but that's the limit of my capabilities.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Accumulated earth leakage?

It means two or more small leakage faults happening at the same time and adding up to enough to trip the RCD.

I wouldn't think this is the case with random trips in the middle of the night.

Can this just come on with no previous issues?

All faults start like that.

 

[Murdochcat]

It means two or more small leakage faults happening at the same time and adding up to enough to trip the RCD.

Not sure in agree with this.

Seen many sites where all the sockets are on 1 RCD and the cumulative leakage is mid to high teens in mA then one extra item can push it over the threshold

Increasingly common with older boards, where all the sockets are on 1 RCD and there are lots of electronic items plugged in

 

[EFLImpudence]

How is that not what I said?

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

How is that not what I said?

I suspect he means the word 'fault'. A small amount of leakage is a normal part of modern device operation, as the X capacitors are more or less mandatory to meet EMC requirements. Other than the use of that word, it was correct.