Electrical fault in consumer unit?

Hi All,

A mate has just rung me to see if I had any ideas why there was no power to the sockets in his house? He said none of the trips had 'tripped' and the lights and boiler were working but nothing to the sockets.

I asked him to confirm if there was any power to the upstairs cct and he said that was dead also.

It sounds like his consumer unit goes: main isolating switch, 3 mcb's (trips?) an ELCB (or whatever it's called these days) and a further group of trips.

I explained to him that it sounded like everything to the right of the ELCB was 'dead' suggesting that it had in fact tripped or had simply failed (or loose connection on the buss bar etc)

My suggestion was to trip all the switches to the right of the ELCB and see if it would then reset (he didn't think it had tripped but I said to try to trip and reset it anyway) and then try to reset the other switches one-at-a-time and see what happens?

So, any clues from the above what might be the problem here please (apart from me being out of date with the terms I mean )?

All the best ..

T i m (still running re-wirable fuses .. (not))

Reply to
T i m
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Some types of RCD only 'trip' half way. They need to be pushed into the off position and then back to the on position. If there was a looase connection on the busbar to the RCD I would have expected this to show up before noe in the form of melting, arcing, smoking consumer unit, intermittent working of sockets etc.. It is unlikely to work and then all of a sudden not. Does it actually trip when the test button is pressed? Can it be physically turned on, (ie can the lever be moved mechanically, but possibly not electrically)? ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

Reply to
Lurch

[T] Ah, I thought something like this might be the case ..
[T] Good point .. I'm not aware of anything like this happening ... he does / did have some Halogen lights that keep blowing?

It is

[T] Ok ..

[T] That was one of the things I suggest he tries but I've not heard back yet ..
[T] That was another thing I tried to get across on the phone ... the trouble is he's one of these folk who thinks he actually knows it all and started arguing with me on the phone ... I reminded him that *he* phoned *me* and to just answer "yes, no or I don't know" .. (that shut him up) .. ;-)

All the best, I'll let you know what happens and thanks so far Lurch ;-)

T i m

Reply to
T i m

[T] Hi again,

Just thought I'd let you know what I found ... a loose wire connecting the RCD to the i/c supply on the neutral side! (so not a bad guess then eh? ). Apparently apart from the odd flicker on the lights there seems there wasn't any smoke or other signs of imminent failure (luckily) ;-(

When I say 'loose' I mean the screw that should be nipping the 5mm dia copper 'bar / wire' to neutral block was about to fall out!

I took the bar out completely and cleaned all the carbon off it and did the same inside the hole in the block and nipped it all up neatly again (the hole was pretty clean). I checked all the other screws while I was there and they were ok. It's funny but he had the boiler changed a little while ago and the boiler wire went into the hole next to the one with the loose screw ... I wonder if he undid the wrong one by mistake and forgot to do it up again ... ?

The other 'fault' (a series of lights not working in a bathroom) turned out to be a blown fuse in a little sub-consumer unit. He had checked the fuse himself he said .. .....

Oh well ... it's nice when a plan comes together ... ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

Nice to know someone's getting easy jobs then! ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

Reply to
Lurch

[T] Hmm .. fitting a dark wood effect bath panel for another family friend. It's quite heavy and the enameled steel bath offers little for attachment. I pulled out the thin rickety frame and fitted sometrhing more substantial but the bath slopes (?) and I'm torn between putting the panel parallel to the ground (it's about 2" short of the floor) and having a wedge shaped gap under the bath lip or having it parallel to the lip (for a nice silicone joint).

Tif it's parallel to the top of the bath then the end isn't vertical making marrying up the end panel more akward ..?

Ho hum .. I'm sure I'll sort something ...

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

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