Shower Trips breaker

If your voltage happens* to be high (253V is the top that's in spec) your shower could take ~37A, so that's a 23% overload, if the MCB has been subjected to that for many years, it could well start tripping after a shorter duration.

[*] more dependant on distance to substation than whether or not you live** by a power station [**] speaking of which, photo #15 anyone?
Reply to
Andy Burns
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It looks like it:-)

That looks like a voltage operated circuit breaker (the one with the yellow button). They were obsolete well before 1986.

You should consider changing it to a modern current operated RCD - especially if you have a TT supply. It may be worth considering a full consumer unit change instead.

Reply to
ARW

The sticker is a universal sticker that was put on all Wylex plug in MCBs regardless of their rating that were made at the time. It relates to the breaking current of the MCBs. All it is saying is that 5A MCB have a breaking curent of 1kA (M1) and all other MCBs (15A to 45A) have a breaking capacity of 2kA (M2).

The 30A on the push button is ....................(fill the rest in yourself Andy):-)

The MCB is using BS3871. That was replaced in 1994 by BS60898 although I do believe that both BS standards ran along side each other for a year or two. A domestic BS60898 MCB has a 6kA breaking capacity.

Reply to
ARW

I engaged a contractor/builder, a house surveyor's recommendation, to do a whole lot of renovation on this 1862 property shortly after moving in 30+ years ago. Now I'm beginning to come across shortcomings. The whole electrics were supposed to have been updated but also the roof re-tiled and felted. On another thread some while back I described problems with a leak running through the brickwork. The lead valley for a dormer roof finished FLUSH with the roof tiles so that water would seep around and under the valley. Just for the sake of a 2" overlap I've had that problem that I thought was being caused by something else. I wonder what else I'll find.

Oh, and nothing was supporting the upstairs chimney after the downstairs one had been removed in the kitchen, and none of the unused chimneys were capped and vented. And the upstairs floorboards creak following some pretty rough routing of central heating pipes which I've only just seen. Anyway - going a bit O/T with this rant.

Reply to
AnthonyL

Thought that first pic looked like an old station and sure enough;!..

Well Drax is a power station .. right?..

Reply to
tony sayer

I wonder when the next train's due?

Reply to
Roger Mills

According to an article in the DT last week in the north west grid voltage has been reduced by up to 3% quite regularly to cope with fluctuating output from wind mills.

Reply to
bert

Just had a 5 minute power cut here (yay for replacing the UPS batteries a few weeks ago!) now power is back, have noticed the UPS is in "boost" mode, normally it's in "buck" mode as our voltage seems to sit rather high - too high at times - just measured the voltage and it's fluctuating between 208 and 210V

Reply to
Andy Burns

Supply voltage is slowly ramping back up, a volt every 15-20 seconds, with a +/-2V fluctuation on top, now around 229V, nominally correct but the lowest I've seen it here.

Do transco have a GBFO variac somewhere :-)

None of the internet frequency monitors show anything under 50Hz, so presumably something quite local is still struggling?

Reply to
Andy Burns

If it's regulary above 253 or below 216 complain. Our DNO takes such complaints reasonably seriously. Especially if you can provide evidence of such over/under volts,

They have "regulators" automatic step switching transformers that (should) stop the end user supply voltage getting outside the legal limits.

Almost ceratinly a local regulator getting itself sorted out after a change in feed. A 5 min outage indicates a fault upstream that the control centre have remotely isolated and routed around to get as many customers back on supply as possible.

Our supply is normally 240 V +/- 5 V 24/7. That's when the local primary susbstation is being fed with its main 33 kV feed. When they work on that feed they switch to an 11 kV back up that goes through a regulator. This regulator struggles to keep the over night, low load, voltage under the legal maximum here.

We've just been through that again, first might the voltage

*averaged* 258. Complained, engineers visited within a couple of hours, explained to them, few phone calls and they find that work was being done on the 33 kV. I think another engineer tweaked a regulator somewhere ("200 V off the 33 kV", so presumably at a primary that provided the 11 kV back up). And the voltage here did drop by the expect couple of volts but almost every night, whilst on the backup, the voltge was around 255. They also came and fitted a voltage recorder for a week, I have a sneaky feeling it's recordings correlate rather well with my records that I've been graphing and emailing daily to ENW.

I'm going to get in touch with a very proactive chap at ENW who has "taken ownership" of the problem to see what they intend to do.

They said at one point I was the only person to complain but how many people pay any attention to their supply voltage? The only reason I know is because the UPS clicks as it switches between boost/buck/normal and is under the desk. I also run NUT on the server to shut cleanly shut it down, as NUT can log various UPS parameters it does... The chap who collected the voltage recorder said they had now had another complaint from some one in the next valley but off the same primary, they only noticed as they have volage readout on their Solar PV invertor.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

This incidence of being below was unusual, above has been normal for years, you'd think they'd know, rather than rely on complaints.

I know they can adjust "taps" didn't really expect it to be in 1V steps.

Yep, the UPS (click, brief whirr of fans, click) was what first made me check, everything else (multimeters, plug in killawatt, Seagate disturbance recorder) agrees, but none of them are "proper" calibrated devices.

Reply to
Andy Burns

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