Electrical fault.

[redsturgeon]

I have a fault with my electrics. My board is split two ways and the RCD for one side trips and would not reset.

I tried turning off each of the five circuits in turn but still the RCD would not reset.

I called out a local electrician on Friday, he spent three hours on site and managed to isolate the fault to a "fault on the neutral wire" on the upstairs sockets. He managed to get the four other circuits back online quite quickly but then seemed stumped and after tracking down the fault to between two sockets, he suggested he would need to split the ring main and downgrade it to 16 amps from 32...all fair enough.

However he then seemed to faff around for another hour or so without getting any further.

Then he had a phone call, said his wife was going to A&E with chest pains and he was going to meet her there.

He rushed off and I haven't heard from him since.

I am loathe to call him in case his wife has died...what should I do now?

John

[pochisoldi]

I have a fault with my electrics. My board is split two ways and the RCD for one side trips and would not reset.

I tried turning off each of the five circuits in turn but still the RCD would not reset.

I called out a local electrician on Friday, he spent three hours on site and managed to isolate the fault to a "fault on the neutral wire" on the upstairs sockets. He managed to get the four other circuits back online quite quickly but then seemed stumped and after tracking down the fault to between two sockets, he suggested he would need to split the ring main and downgrade it to 16 amps from 32...all fair enough.

However he then seemed to faff around for another hour or so without getting any further.

Then he had a phone call, said his wife was going to A&E with chest pains and he was going to meet her there.

He rushed off and I haven't heard from him since.

I am loathe to call him in case his wife has died...what should I do now?

John

1) Get another electrician in to fix the problem with the remaining circuit. Make sure you tell electrician #2 that "The upstairs circuit was causing the RCD to trip", rather than "We want the upstairs ring splitting into two radials".
2) Be prepared to pay/offer to pay 3x £<insert hourly rate> to the first electrician in respect of the work started and completed successfully.
3) If Electrician #1 doesn't get in touch, contact them and ask where they want the cheque sending...

Bear in mind that the exact location of the fault has not been found yet - for all we know it could be an easily fixed loose neutral connection behind an outlet (easily fixed, no need to split the ring), rather than a nipped neutral in the middle of a cable run (either replace the cable = hack/chisel wall, or do a "workaround" by splitting the ring into two radials by disconnecting both ends of the faulty cable, swapping 1x32A MCB for 2x16A/20A MCBs)

PochiSoldi

[Itsallaguess]

Sounds odd for a neutral/earth fault to suddenly develop on a socket-circuit...

I'd be tempted to remove all plugs from the circuit, and then remove all the face-plate screws and pull the socket-faces out of the back-boxes a little, being careful to watch for where the cables enter and exit the back-boxes, and ensuring that there's no rubbing of the box going on with any of the wiring...also of course be careful that no wires come out of the back of ANY of the sockets when slightly pulling them out of their back-boxes....nip up as required...

Doing that might well enable the socket-circuit to be turned back on without any tripping occurring, with the idea being that a slightly-nipped neutral wire somewhere (pressed into the earthed back-box plate when the socket-faces have been screwed on, or even a badly-placed neutral-wire folded behind a face-plate screw, that was then nipped over time by the screw-front) would then be relieved of the fault.

If the first electrician didn't actually start removing any wiring, then the above is a fairly DIY procedure so long as you're careful, and ensure of course that any work at all is done with the socket circuit switched OFF, with close inspection being carried out if and when you turn the circuit back on with the face-plates off - you only really want to do this for a moment, to see if the RCD continues to trip or not....so switch it back OFF if it doesn't trip, as you've got the news you want at that point, and you don't want to leave the socket-faces off for any longer than you need to....

If the RCD still trips with the face-plates proud of the back-boxes, then I'd start removing the face-plates one-by-one, and replacing them with large connector-blocks to mimic the removed socket-faces in the wiring circuit (they should normally just be looped in and back out on a ring-main..). If there's a faulty socket-face, then this should find it as you work around with the circuit off, and then turn it back on BRIEFLY each time you remove a socket-face, to see if it still trips or not...

If you end up removing all the socket-faces and it still trips (but they do need to be connector-blocked together once removed, to maintain the circuit..), and there's no obvious nipping of wiring as they enter or exit the socket-back-boxes, then it would indicate an issue with the in-between wiring, but I'd say that would be a rare occurrence, given that this wiring would normally be untouched since installation, and not normally under any stresses at all, compared to the local stresses put on the wiring behind the socket-faces. Has there been any water ingress at the back end of last week at all? Heavy rains on a particular outside wall?

The above should only be carried out if you're handy with knowing which is ON and which is OFF on the relevant socket-circuit breaker, and if you've scrunched your nose up at ANY of the above, then don't touch a thing and just ring electrician number 2....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[beeswax]

Some good advice there and its just my natural scepticism but chest pains can cover a multitude of sins...

I don't know who initially designed the mains circuits plugs and sockets all those years ago which was then copied by everyone as they seem ridiculously far too shallow and thus cable ends are too short and so not easily accessible without as you say without cables coming loose if you tug at them. Same with some ceiling light fittings as well....

I still have the old type fuse box that has fuses with fuse wire in and can't remember being any problem at all in the last 35 years..Seems the electricians have always been weird as they always seem to install the fuse boxes near the ceiling or next to the floor in a cupboard...

[beeswax]

Some good advice there and its just my natural scepticism but chest pains can cover a multitude of sins...

I don't know who initially designed the mains circuits plugs and sockets all those years ago which was then copied by everyone as they seem ridiculously far too shallow and thus cable ends are too short and so not easily accessible without as you say without cables coming loose if you tug at them. Same with some ceiling light fittings as well....

I still have the old type fuse box that has fuses with fuse wire in and can't remember being any problem at all in the last 35 years..Seems the electricians have always been weird as they always seem to install the fuse boxes near the ceiling or next to the floor in a cupboard...

Yes, I know the last bit was based on safety and not allowing kids and other prying hands to get near them etc...

[ClaudiusTheIdiot]

Good advice above.
Assuming the electrician's diagnosis is correct, temporary workarounds...
If the faulty circuit can't be used, run extension leads from other sockets. Check the ratings of the extension leads and don't overload them.
If the faulty circuit can be used, and this means that the electrician has disconnected the offending wire, find which sockets are on the faulty circuit. Continue using it but don't draw more than say 20A total (which is quite a lot).
4A is just under 1kw, and 20A is around 4.8kW. If it's complex you could label the sockets and mark each plug with the rated current of its equipment.

Afterthought - check whether any fixed equipment such as heaters runs from the faulty circuit. Take this into account in the loading (and if by any chance there is such equipment, it might be the cause of the problem).

Don't leave stuff running unattended on the faulty circuit (and perhaps on anything else for that matter) until the problem has been sorted and the system checked.

[csearle]

I have a fault with my electrics. My board is split two ways and the RCD for one side trips and would not reset.

I tried turning off each of the five circuits in turn but still the RCD would not reset.

I called out a local electrician on Friday, he spent three hours on site and managed to isolate the fault to a "fault on the neutral wire" on the upstairs sockets. He managed to get the four other circuits back online quite quickly but then seemed stumped and after tracking down the fault to between two sockets, he suggested he would need to split the ring main and downgrade it to 16 amps from 32...all fair enough.

However he then seemed to faff around for another hour or so without getting any further.

Then he had a phone call, said his wife was going to A&E with chest pains and he was going to meet her there.

He rushed off and I haven't heard from him since.

I am loathe to call him in case his wife has died...what should I do now?

John

I agree with what has been said. What I am missing is the change that has brought on this new-found issue. Normally if nothing changes then RCDs don't just start tripping. So when one does the first question is always, "Has anything been altered?"

In the case of an RCD tripping it is usually a recent alteration (e.g. a shelf put up somewhere, where a fixing screw has penetrated a cable), or some kind of liquid ingress.

So if you or someone else has not attempted any DIY recently then the next most likely things is water ingress, This happens if there has been something of a flood, or an oil-filled heater has developed a fault (or a kettle, fridge, freezer, washing machine, etc.)

If the fault is solid, i.e. not intermittent, then it only takes seconds to establish if the symptom requires a particular circuit to be switched on, and a matter of minutes to do the same for the neutrals of those circuits. So for that reason alone I would not invite the first electrician back.

As Its has said, unplug EVERYTHING from the affected circuit. Switch off ALL fused connection-units attached to the affected circuit. This will isolate any faults in the appliances from the fixed wiring. If the problem vanishes then by plugging-in/switching-on the appliances the fault can be located.

It sounds to me as if your electrician determined that a circuit wasn't actually a ring. He might have discovered that he could connect one neutral in to the busbar without problem, but the second caused the RCD to trip. If this is the case then then the neutral conductor is not in the form of a ring and a decrease of the protective device's rating would be essential to protect adequately your fixed wiring. This would not cure your RCD tripping fault but be an indication of a fundamental issue with your fixed installation.

So to reiterate, my first steps would be to unplug everything to work out if the problem lies with appliances, and if not, to think hard about any changes that have occurred as the tripping started, including possible water ingress.

If neither of those thoughts help then go for a different electrician. (If you are are vaguely near Tunbridge Wells then a beer would probably help us get to the bottom of it. )

Chris

[Infrasonic]

WRT to water ingress, my mums house (which I now rent out) had a trip issue in the kitchen for years whenever it rained or was damp, regular sparks had looked at it a few times but didn't resolve it.

Last summer I spent a fair bit on the roof and general repointing. Mentioned to the maintenance company about the trip and if it was an outside wall damp issue and he said 'we'll sort it' when we do the repointing.
Not had an issue since but I don't know if it was just the repointing or if they 'sealed' the brickwork, the invoices don't go into that level of detail, they just have large numbers attached to them...