Iron tripping rcd?

[grizzly]

this happened to my wife twice and then final time it saved her life as the water tank had burst. it must have been leaking slowly at first. replaced the iron and all was well.

dave

[a]

Finally got around to replacing the old wooden fusebox with a nice new MK unit yesterday, but the rcd has tripped twice now in 24 hours. It has happened when the iron has been in use, first time yesterday it had been on

15 minutes or so and after resetting the rcd didnt trip again. Does it sound like the iron is faulty or perhaps the socket it is plugged into (iron cable looks ok - not frayed or twisted)?

cheers

Dave.

[Harry Bloomfield]

a expressed precisely :

Almost certainly the iron at fault. I assume it is a steam iron and these can become very corroded inside due to the moisture. The moisture itself can cause the RCD to trip. Replace it with a new one.

[Malc]

We've had that happen about three times now. Are modern irons crap or what?

-- Malc

[a]

I thought that seemed the most likely candidate. It is a steam iron, but cant be more than a year old!

[Bob Mannix]

Our T*f*l one used to do that as steam found its way into the connection box. They vary in crapness with respect to RCD's. The replacement didn't do this.

Bob

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Assuming the iron was properly earthed, why do you think any fault would have killed her?

[a]

I take it there is no point in plugging the iron into a 'plugin rcd' adapter thing (on an already rcd protected ring)? Would it just be luck which rcd tripped first?

[Bob Mannix]

Well, that was our experience - the 30mA one on the ring main would quite often not fail before the 100mA whole house one did :o((

[Tim Mitchell]

In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Even if it wasn't earthed, you wouldn't get more than a tingle.