Advice needed electric keeps tripping

[Bexs13]

Hi, so during the hot weather a few weeks ago my electric started tripping the main switch, this was happening at random times during the early hours of the morning, this happened for a couple of days then nothing for 2 weeks, spoke to my electrician and he was a bit confused by it all. Anyway Tuesday this week it tripped six times in a day, called Western Power and they came out the same day and changed the connections on the outside of the house as they looked a bit worn, great thought the problem was fixed 4 hours later it trips again then twice in the night. I've lost count how many times it's been reset today, it went half an hour ago and I've left it off for now. Can anybody shed alight on what the problem could be as I'm getting a bit concerned now, will contact another electrician in the morning to see what they think

 

[Pete999]

Hi, so during the hot weather a few weeks ago my electric started tripping the main switch, this was happening at random times during the early hours of the morning, this happened for a couple of days then nothing for 2 weeks, spoke to my electrician and he was a bit confused by it all. Anyway Tuesday this week it tripped six times in a day, called Western Power and they came out the same day and changed the connections on the outside of the house as they looked a bit worn, great thought the problem was fixed 4 hours later it trips again then twice in the night. I've lost count how many times it's been reset today, it went half an hour ago and I've left it off for now. Can anybody shed alight on what the problem could be as I'm getting a bit concerned now, will contact another electrician in the morning to see what they think

What tripped exactly, DNOs fuse, RCD on Your Consumers unit (CU) or was it a fuse or circuit breaker in the CU?

 

[Bexs13]

It was the RCD

 

[Pete999]

It was the RCD

Then you more than likely have a fault on your electrical installation, does the trip occur at any specific time of the day, say meal times, any outside lighting on your house, do you have an electric shower, doe the trip occur when someone is showering?

 

[Dave OCD]

There will definitely be a fault on at least one circuit within your home, you need a competent electrician with test equipment to find and rectify the fault, basically the RCD is doing its job.

 

[Bexs13]

It's been happening in the early hours of the morning when nothing is on, apart from the fridge freezer which I thought it was because of the time the electric was going off

 

[westward10]

What time does your heating kick in.

 

[Bexs13]

It doesn't I've switched it off on the boiler.

 

[westward10]

It doesn't I've switched it off on the boiler.

What about the water heating.

 

[Bexs13]

I have a condenser boiler which I can set to either have hot water and heating or just hot water which I do this time of year

 

[Pete999]

What about the water heating.

Normally in a case of the RCD tripping it would be fairly easy to se which circuit is causing the problem, by switching the RCD OFF switching the cbs OFF, RCD back ON and switch the cbs back on until the RCD operates cant do this in your case as it#s random tripping, not any help for you unfortunately. Best you get a Sparky in to do some testing.

 

[Bexs13]

Yes will do, thanks for your replies anyway.

 

[davesparks]

An intermittent fault like this can be an absolute swine to diagnose. Whilst I agree that your best course of action is to call an electrician it is unlikely to be a simple job of just connecting the tester and finding the fault.

 

[Octopus]

Before you call a spark in, if it's tripping overnight, unplug as many items as you can, then you can help eliminate as many accessories as possible ..... And keep a diary of when it goes off .....

 

[raustin]

Had something similar a few weeks back. Rcbo would trip random times of day. Turned out that cable had been trapped under floor next to hot water pipe. Cable had started to melt. When pipe got hot circuit would trip. Pain to find!