House circuit breaker activated!

Oct 27, 2005 7 Replies
K

Hi,



I'm a bit bemused...



I turned off the 'ground floor sockets' on my 'fusebox' (or whatever they're called these days) whilst fitting some new, well, sockets. I had 5 to do and all was going well. I checked each one with a socket tester first just to make sure it wasn't live. I got to the last one, inserted the live wires - fine. The earth - fine. As I went to put the neutral in place I was plunged into darkness (my gf wasn't impressed - she was up a ladder painting the downstairs loo at the time).



Thankfully I managed to find a torch in the pitch black and reset the circuit breaker.



Could my socket tinkering (remembering that the sockets were OFF at the time) have contributed in any way to the blackout or must it have been something else. How do I find out what caused it?



BTW - after the power was restored, I used the socket tester on each of the newly fitted sockets and it reported everything as a-ok. I also used a power tester screwdriver on the visible screwheads just in case something had gone amiss - nothing!



TIA,



Daz


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G

The most likely cause is that you got a brief short between earth & neutral (maybe one of the neutrals stroked the earthed strip on the back of the socket plate?), which allowed a small amount of current (from the other loads in the house, lights etc) to bypass the main RCD, which unbalanced it, and caused just the effect that they are designed for. At a guess you have an earth rod?

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K

I don't know about an earth rod. Is that likely in a 15 year old house?

So this would happen even if the socket I was working on is unpowered?

Thankfully it didn't happen with the other 4 - that would have really unnerved me! :o)

Daz

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C

Crikey, you must have a very big one (ooh-err)!

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:

which

unpowered?

Unless it's a DP circuit breaker then yes, as the neutrals are connected directly to the neutral busbar and are thus unstitched.

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C

You touched the neutral. Neutrals are dead common. You were, at that time, an earth. What went out did not equal what came back. The RCD noticed this, and went "CLACK!". I have had it happen,and if your head is near the switch, it sounds quite exciting.

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G

It could be that if you are on a whole house RCD then some earth leakage occurred whilst you were wiring them up. This happens even if that circuit is off.

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