Any electricians around?

[parkgirl]

Our power keep tripping - we have turned off everything and tried to isolate the issue we can’t find what is causing it to trip. We do have home cover but is there anything else we can do?

[Nelly7]

Is it just 1 circuit or the main fuse that is tripping

[mickey house]

When you say you have turned everything off are you referring to sockets and lights etc or the MCBs (assuming you have MCBs - miniature circuit breakers).

If you haven’t already done so then turn each MCB off one at a time and you might establish what circuit is faulty (or turn them all off and put them on one at at a time). Each MCB should be labelled to identify what circuit it covers such as ‘kitchen sockets’, ‘upstairs lights’ etc. If the circuits keep tripping it could be the RCD that is causing the circuit to trip and some old boards just had one RCD covering all the circuits and some had 2 each covering a number of circuits, but even older boards don’t have an RCD.

Please also be aware that even if you identify the circuit causing the issue then even if for instance it’s a socket circuit and you remove all the appliances plugged into the sockets it might still trip.

Good luck

[parkgirl]

So we have worked out that it’s our sockets as that is the main thing that is tripping - sometimes just that goes off and sometimes it’s the full mains switch. We have everything else on now and it’s fine - just nothing in the sockets on that particular circuit.

[mickey house]

Originally Posted by parkgirl

So we have worked out that it’s our sockets as that is the main thing that is tripping - sometimes just that goes off and sometimes it’s the full mains switch. We have everything else on now and it’s fine - just nothing in the sockets on that particular circuit.

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Glad you’ve identified the circuit, but it’s not the main switch that trips as that can’t trip as it just turns all the circuits on or off. It’s the switch that should be labelled RCD which you usually have one or two of that will trip.

Sometimes even having everything removed from every socket in the faulty circuit can still cause the circuit to trip.

[parkgirl]

Originally Posted by mickey house

Glad you’ve identified the circuit, but it’s not the main switch that trips as that can’t trip as it just turns all the circuits on or off. It’s the switch that should be labelled RCD which you usually have one or two of that will trip.

Sometimes even having everything removed from every socket in the faulty circuit can still cause the circuit to trip.

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Thank you for your advice!

[grannyval]

I have had the same problem and nothing could be found. However, the of the electricians who came out said that he had found that extension leads could be causing the problem. I have removed most of them and, touch wood, the problem seems to have gone away.

[Bondy007]

Had a similar issue earlier this year, all sockets downstairs kept tripping. Through a process of elimination discovered it was the toaster. So before I dumped the toaster and spent more money I cleaned it out and discovered a rogue piece of bread was stuck to one of the elements which was causing the trip.
No expert needed. Would have been annoyed paying an electrician to find my problem was a dirty toaster!

[cornishfrogboy]

Whilst I have the very highest regard for qualified tradesmen (particularly our no1 DIBBER of the year), it makes perfect sense to eliminate the obvious before making ‘that call’ as the cost is clearly going to reflect the skill set and training of whoever subsequently attends.

Removing all plugged in appliances one by one and thus narrowing down the likely cause (whilst possibly solving the problem in the process) is not a job for a qualified electrician, merely basic common sense… as advocated by Mr J Bond in the preceding ‘Toastergate’ post.

[parkgirl]

Well the electrician came today and we are sorted. It seems that when we had a new kitchen 4 years ago the electrician who fitted the new cooker hood didn’t disconnect the old one’s wires leaving them live…4 years on it seems they were earthing and tripping the electric circuit!