Cooker switch buzz

[Maffer]

Hi all,

Had a call last night regarding a 32A hob supply (dedicated). The neon had gone off and the hob was not working but the socket on the isolator plate was working. While the caller was explaining, apparently the table lamps plugged into the ground floor ring flickered, the neon came back on and the switch was buzzing like mad.

Obviously the first response was switch off immediately. This morning we visited to investigate and found no issue at all, all results perfectly normal (pretty good in fact) and the supply/isolator functioning perfectly normal.

Supplier issue maybe?

We did contact them but they had no knowledge of any issues.

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[Adam Paj Paget]

I had a call out a few months back to lights randomly flickering in the house. When I arrived there was nothing happening everything was normal all tests fine.
Whilst talking to the home owner it began flickering. Phoned western powers who said there was no issues in the area, they attended and the outside junction had melted causing bad connection. Might be worth getting supplier to check outside junction.

 

[UKMeterman]

Sounds like a tracking issue in the cooker switch, does the switch get a lot of steam on it? This can produce a low resistance path that can then cause an arc to grow, this then carbonises the path and gets worse and worse. Replace the cooker switch and check the wiring in the cooker switch.

 

[Richard Burns]

Agree with the above post, and could also be a poor contact in the switch only just making, especially under load, this would account for the buzzing as the switch is arcing. It is possible that the arc temporarily "cleaned" the contacts and allowed it to work when you were there.
I would also recommend changing the switch, if no network faults are found.

 

[UKMeterman]

NB Buzzing was heard at the cooker switch, the chances are there was an arc at the switch, replace the switch.