Cooker hood trips other circuits on fuse board: what's going on?

[PEG]

No I'll continue, just because you are not a member of the CPS doesn't make you a bad Electrician, sorry but that hit a nerve.

I agree,pete,but the converse is just as true,being registered to anything,does not give any guarantee of competence.

I regularly get asked to follow up on some weird fault,or other,and most likely,the previous investigators,have had splendid,liveried up wheels and togs

The OP mentioned that the property had been "mostly re-wired",but the two floors of sockets outlets going off at the same time,may be a concern.

 

[SparkyChick]

The posts that were made earlier in this thread have been lost due to the server move, I replied with this message.

No I'll continue, just because you are not a member of the CPS doesn't make you a bad Electrician, sorry but that hit a nerve.

I know it doesn't Pete and I can see the implication from my comment, sorry for that, but that's not what I meant. I know several great sparks who aren't members of the scams because they don't need to be, but for a householder it's a reasonably good place to start and I feel we should be encouraging householders to check people out using the tools available to them.

 

[SparkyChick]

The OP went on to reply with some details.

When the hood trips the breakers, it trips the two feeding upstairs and downstairs sockets, not the kitchen sockets.

He also went on to state that the kitchen was done about 4 years ago (I think it was 18 months after they moved in which was when the bulk of the rewiring was done) and that all the sparks who'd looked at it were reputable. The fault doesn't occur consistently which would explain why it's proving difficult to track down.

@Midwest suggested disconnecting the hood for a while to see if the fault occurs without it in use.

@Leesparkykent suggested it is a neutral-earth fault on one of the circuits that's tripping.

Beyond that, I can't remember much else

 

[Octopus]

Back to the OP ..... Has it ever worked properly?

Having tripping as you describe sounds VERY odd....

Clamp meter time

 

[SparkyChick]

He did state in one of his replies, that he believed the problem had started when the kitchen was done.

Long time to live with a fault that he believes causes a trip once every one or two weeks.

 

[hightower]

NE fault on hood I reckon. Mine does the same occasionally, CBA to fix/replace. Wife is still waiting for me to clean the windows which I said I'd do February 2016.

 

[D00DY_T00DY]

NE fault on hood I reckon. Mine does the same occasionally, CBA to fix/replace. Wife is still waiting for me to clean the windows which I said I'd do February 2016.

Just wait for that sideways rain

Or the window fairy.

 

[Tom Oxford]

If I write another reply, will the missing 2nd page of this thread reappear, I wonder...

He did state in one of his replies, that he believed the problem had started when the kitchen was done.

Long time to live with a fault that he believes causes a trip once every one or two weeks.

Can't believe I took so long to get around to posting on a forum only to choose a day when the server was being worked on and most of my effort was wasted, replies being lost!

I'll try and remember what I said yesterday. Sparkychick got a lot of it but I'll recap.

The extractor is on circuit 4 (kitchen sockets) but it trips circuits 5 & 6 (upstairs & downstairs sockets), usually both at once, though occasionally just one of them. It doesn't happen every time, which would be almost every day, but maybe once every week or two.

When we moved in nearly 6 years ago we had the kitchen ripped out and a lot of rewiring done. It was meant to be just adding/moving sockets and getting the kitchen electrics ready but the existing wiring was apparently dodgy and muddled and so quite a bit of rewiring was done. This was done by a reputable, qualified and experienced electrician. Some 18 months after that we had the kitchen installed, electrics being done by someone else (subcontracted by kitchen fitter). I think this was mostly connecting up.

Yes, it's a long time to live with a fault, but human beings are adaptable ;-) Also, when you've had 3 different qualified electricians test your system and none of them can find the cause, nor seem to think it's dangerous, what else can you do but live with it? Answer that belatedly came to me: ask around on the internet!

Someone seemed to suggest (though I may be taking his comment too literally!) that the issue with the hob sparking when other appliances start up was my imagination but it really does happen, and none of the famous 3 could answer that one either.

In one of my list replies I mooted showing your comments to one of the 3 electricians I've already seen (I know which one seems the most experienced) and seeing what he thought. It's been a couple of years since anyone had a look and I can't remember what they told me they'd looked for, so it may be some of your ideas have been tried already, who knows.

Any thoughts?

Oh, and thanks very much to all of you for contributing!

 

[Tom Oxford]

The posts that were made earlier in this thread have been lost due to the server move, I replied with this message.



I know it doesn't Pete and I can see the implication from my comment, sorry for that, but that's not what I meant. I know several great sparks who aren't members of the scams because they don't need to be, but for a householder it's a reasonably good place to start and I feel we should be encouraging householders to check people out using the tools available to them.

For what it's worth, as a layman, I felt Sparkychick was just making a suggestion of a good place to start in finding a good electrician and not casting any aspersions...

 

[SparkyChick]

The hob igniter... is it a big (relatively) push button or is it a touch control?

 

[Tom Oxford]

The hob igniter... is it a big (relatively) push button or is it a touch control?

Neither, it automatically sparks when you turn the know for the gas ring.

 

[Octopus]

I'll try again.

Op has it worked properly since the kitchen works?

 

[Tom Oxford]

I'll try again.

Op has it worked properly since the kitchen works?

The extractor has tripped those other two circuits for as long as I can remember but I can't swear whether it started as soon as we had the kitchen fitted or not, sorry. I can't think of any work that's been done or anything that's happened since the fitting that may have triggered the phenomenon. Ditto the hob sparking thing.

 

[Octopus]

So that's a no then!

Can you post a picky of your fuse board?

 

[Pete999]

Don't know if anyone else has asked, and my head hurts when I try to read back through the posts, but these 3 Electricians that have looked at your problem, did they leave any reportsafter they hAD

 

[Des 56]

A appliance on circuit 4 tripping circuits 5 and 6 sounds implausible
You have a cooker hood outlet that trips the up and down sockets,because it is located in the kitchen may not mean it is part of the kitchen ring

If it was wired into both the up and down ring (bridging both)it may be possible to operate a very low current appliance much of the time and perhaps cause tripping of one or both the Up and/or the Down Rcbos on occasion only,the imbalance of the trip may be within its threshold with just a fan

The hob igniter operating when it feels like doing so is very strange and other than guessing its some sort of capacitive charge across a faulty item then I would be at a loss to even consider this is real

 

[Tom Oxford]

So that's a no then!

Can you post a picky of your fuse board?

I did this already but it looks like the server move may have lost it so here it is again.

 

[Tom Oxford]

A appliance on circuit 4 tripping circuits 5 and 6 sounds implausible
You have a cooker hood outlet that trips the up and down sockets,because it is located in the kitchen may not mean it is part of the kitchen ring

If it was wired into both the up and down ring (bridging both)it may be possible to operate a very low current appliance much of the time and perhaps cause tripping of one or both the Up and/or the Down Rcbos on occasion only,the imbalance of the trip may be within its threshold with just a fan

The hob igniter operating when it feels like doing so is very strange and other than guessing its some sort of capacitive charge across a faulty item then I would be at a loss to even consider this is real

If I manually flick off the fuse for circuit 4 the extractor fan stops; not so with circuits 5 & 6.

When you say you would be at a loss to even consider this is real (hob sparking), do you mean you don't believe it happens? Cos it does!

 

[Tom Oxford]

Neither, it automatically sparks when you turn the know for the gas ring.

Obviously I meant "when you turn the knoB"!

 

[Tom Oxford]

A appliance on circuit 4 tripping circuits 5 and 6 sounds implausible

PS That's kind of the whole point! I imagine that's why 3 electricians have not been able to work it out...