Help from the electricians please

Just a thought!
I boarded out my garage roof once
And the RCD would not stay in
I phoned my electrician mate and he said it was a pinched cable
Sure enough I found the cable pinched against the wall
So I released the board and the RCD stayed in fine

 

Yes I could understand it if I’d being drilling or doing some work to the house but no-one was doing anything like that. My wife and daughter were working on laptops and I was letting the dogs in from the garden when everything went off.

 

I reckon as above rain’s got into the outside wiring. Or rats.

 

Well all four (outside light) spur units are disconnected completely, with the cables totally separated, and it's still tripping.

Guess that means the wiring itself is at fault, unless a socket could be fine one minute then cause a fault the next?
I'll start removing them one by one and see if I can narrow down where the fault lies.

 

Have you got an external garage with a power supply that you haven't checked? Could have taken the supply for that direct from the upstairs ring mcb in the fuse board. If you are confident enough to take the fuse board cover off and have a look - if you've got three cables in that mcb then there's another spur off as well.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I have a garage that sometimes does get a little damp inside when the wind/rain is from the wrong direction.

I'm not sure where it's taken off but it's not the upstairs ring, there's only two cables in the mcb and the screws are tight.

 

Immersion tank?
Shower pump?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

In the garden. That’s a proper posh house.

 

So far I’ve found two sockets that trip when the two ring cables are connected, I haven’t checked them all yet though. As long as they aren’t connected power stays on so I’ve got some upstairs sockets working but still no power to the utility room.
I’ll continue the investigation tomorrow, I’ve had enough of traipsing up and down stairs for one day!

 

Land’s cheap in the north!

 

Nope, don’t possess either of those.

 

Leaky washing machine?

 

Yep got one of those, well non leaky I hope. It’s unplugged and the socket disconnected.

 

No chance that the heating kicked it at the point the electric tripped is there?

I’ve known a sticky water pump trip the electrics, it’s a pig to find as they can have a tight spot, so they don’t trip every time, just when they stop on it.

 

I don’t know to be honest but would that explain the RCD tripping when I reconnect the upstairs ring main?

 

Water or rain getting into a socket is a right pain. I've seen steam from a kettle trip the RCD.

 

I guess that would depend on how your heating is wired. For example on Saturday I needed to change a programmer. The programmer was in the airing cupboard and right next to it a fused spur. I turned the spur off and the programmer went blank. I removed the cover of the wiring centre which was also in the airing cupboard. I always have a quick wave around with a volt stick and sure enough some of the cables were still live. Turns out the clown who wired it had nicked a permanent live from the spur next to the boiler in the kitchen. So two live feeds, two different spurs on two different floors. This is how people die.

 

Found this behind a kitchen cupboard a few years ago they had managed to take the earth out but the other 2 cores were just nicked.

Christ knows how long it had been like it but the note was a nice touch

 

Wow. Just wow.

if someone can go to the trouble of writing a note. Perhaps they might want to actually get it fixed a safe.