electrical problems

[Painless]

~S~ Chaps,

does anyone know why my bloody MCBs trip out in the house from time to time?(usually when I'm in the middle of flying !!)

It happens several times in a row with a different a MCB being the cause each time for a few days then its fine for weeks sometimes ??

I even had it happen when no one is in and nothing much is being used .

Any thoughts ??

~S~ Painless

[BBloke]

I had some trip outs a while back that were put down to one of my electric hob plates which seems to have been behaving itself after a checkup.

They say some of the culprits could be hairdryers, hoovers, electric fires.

I guess if its a different circuit tripping then it could be anything

You haven't got a unscrupulous neighbour stealing your electric have you?

[Friar]

here is watt (noice spelling, funny eh, no, ok then) I know.

RCB's have a rating for "leakage". all electrical units leak a bit of juice. flouresent lights leak, irons, kettles etc, if that goes over the limits, the rcb will trip. I am just in the process of building a couple of ponds and had an electrician in to do the wiring for the pumb and filters. he had a look at my current (no pun intended) setup and advised a seperate RCB for the exterior supply as my type of solutuon is prone to tripping RCBS and I would not want it going at random times.

Now, another story he told me was of a friend of his that had the RCB keep going at different times, but nealrly allways at the same time in the morning. it turned out that they had lots of electrical devices in the house (kids had major stuff in the bedrooms hi-fis, powerful computers plazma screens etc) and when the central heating kicked in in the morning, the extra leakage was enough to put the RCB over the top and trip. he proved it by changing the time his heating came on to a bit later and the same thing happened.

This is all probably of no use but I thought that i would share.

Edit: I just noticed you put MCB, dont know if RCB is the later version

[Tonar]

Did the problem occur before the electrician wired the pump for your pond??

is MCB = Magnetic circuit Breaker

what is RCB?

[Friar]

i dont have a problem tonar, its painless, i was chipping in

[Pooka]

I don't really know much about electricity, I think my reflexes are fast enough to do minor

jobs without turning the power off.

Sounds like an over-load, what else is running at the time?

[Tonar]

Woops, early and I got mixed up.

[Painless]

~S~ chaps, thanks for your comments, I have an electrician M8 at work who I have asked to come have a look see.

He said that it could be an intermittent leakage to earth or some bloody thing !!

Anyway he can't get round until next week so fingers crossed for Sunday