Fuse for the down stairs plugs popped during the night.

Assumed something has died and unplugged everything (literally out the wall) turned it back on and pop it goes again ..

Help? I have no idea what else to do now?

 

When u say unplugged do you have any switched or unwatched spurs for say a extract fan ?

 

Every single plug attached to that circuit is unplugged and the switch off. It's my downstairs all upstairs plugs have been tested and are working, no faulty devices, on the off chance it's been wired wrong.

If the power was staying on, no device would have power, the cooker has it's own circuit and is working fine, but is also off.

 

oh and I have no outdoor lights.

 

I had a similar problem,

Fuse blowing but no devices attached (as far as I could tell)

So I had to do some thinking and proper PD-ing

It looked like it was a junction box - and when I opened it a gooey mess came out

A spider had obviously crawled in and inadvertently made a connection between the live and neutral - for a short time the we spider had become part of the national grid

Cleaned out the goo (which was still making a connection) and all good

 

Im no sparky .but from experience at work (in a school) the mcb do tend to not be up to yje job after a few years service. I make it a general rule that if it trips twice , theres either a faulty mcb or there is a prblem other than old age. We have had them go bad after just 3 or 4 years in use

 

call a sparks or find a insulation resistance tester to test the cables if you are 100% sure there is nothing left connected on the ring main,
or just swap the cables from 1 ring main to the mcb for another to test that,
if they are on the same side of the board then it`s just a case of swapping the lives from mcb one to another.

hth

 

I've reached my level of electrical risk looking for a sparky now

 

Is it a rewireable fuse a mcb or an rcd that is tripping.Just noticed you have no outside lights so i would go for these first as possibly being the problem.

 

It was a loose earth in a plug socket .. I took my sockets off and found it.. seems ok now.

 

Great stuff.

 

Has your other half recently increased your life insurance?

 

A loose earth wouldnt cause overload protection to kick in . . either MCB or fuse

 

Wiring is pretty straight forward to diagnose, if you have a decent multi meter.
most of it can be done from fuse/consumer board

Identify is it wiring or appliance fault, I am assuming wiring fault

Turn off main switch to fuse board.

Identify then isolate the faulty circuit, (remove live wires from circuit breaker.)

Measure first short/leakage between live and neutral, there should be no leakage or short.

Measure between the two Brown wires for continuity on ring circuit, there should be.

measure for continuity between earth and neutral, there should be

finally measure continuity of neutral wires by disconnecting these from circuit.

The difficult/boring bit is then going around checking each point to find problem.

 

You're right it's gone again

 

has anything been replaced electrical recently ?
Have you done any work on the house recently electrical or not ?

 

As above, usually leads you to the problem!

If the outside lights are fed on the same circuit as the ring I'd say without seeing it they probably shouldn't be unless fused down etc, and not a spur off a spur??! And judging by the weather is where I would be looking first off at the outside lights forwater ingress.

Don't try fault finding with a multimeter it won't get you anywhere....

If you have unplugged and isolated/switched off all equipment and it still trips it is a wiring/accesory fault, is it a fuse, mcb or rcd going? It will make a difference as they all trip for different reasons, is it a main rcd or individual rcds?

No need to start taking anything apart just yet until we get to the bottom ofyour set up. Pm me your number and I'll call to talk you through it

 

Check the outside lights they may have water in them.

 

I wish people would learn to read posts before jumping in with crap. He has said he doesn't have outdoor lights!!!

 

I apologise for my error but when it was said that there were no outside lights i took it that he meant that they were not working either and as for jumping in with crap i am a fully qualified electrician.

 

I also misread the outside lights. So I wouldn't worry.

Until the OP clarifies his set up its irrelevant all the advice anyways!

I would also suggest that non intrusive fault finding is advised as. The OP has already suggested his electrical knowledge isn't 100% s

 

electric shocks are good for the heart muscles, man up

 

Exactly what i was thinking about 6 posts earlier


Mart

 

Thanks and maybe Ooperbum is aptly named.

 

Only for you mum!!

 

One that can't read good!!

 

All good.

 

Did you sort it.

 

sort of, he found an issue between kitchen and back room after 3 hours. Needs the kitchen floor taking up, believe there to be a junction box under there.

He has removed said issue by isolating the wire.