Newbie - Advice required on RCD tripping

[dixon_c]

I have a consumer unit with 80A 30mA RCD fitted.
It has been regularly tripping out during the day, mostly when I'm not in but with seemingly no patten.
I don't think it corresponds to any electrical load in the house, as it occurs when I'm out with not much working except for fridge / fish tank etc.

I'm not sure how to progress things, as there seems to be no patten to give me any clues.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to troubleshoot it further?

 

[Edd]

its most likely somthing pluged in. Remember things dont have to be switched on to be in circuit, just being pluged in is enougth for the RCD to see it.
To find the fault an Insulation Resistance tester is normally what we use. This puts a voltage through the circuit and measures the resistance to earth.
Things can then be pluged in and unpluged till the offending item is found.
If after everything is unpluged etc and a fault is still there then it will be a matter of splitting the circuit down to isolate the fault that way..
if your not gona get a sparks in at the moment. get in the habbit of unplugging everything thats not used and switch any switched spurs off to isolate as much as you can. then make a list of what was pluged in when it trips out. hopefully the list after a while will point to the offending appliance. if you still cant find it then a sparks is required

 

[malcolmsanford]

Edd as covered virtually everything you can do yourself.

Chances are that it will be a faulty appliance, most culprits are older fridges, but as Edd said for now try and unplug things when your out, things like the TV, computers and such, as all these contribute to what is called High protective currents.

If obviously you can't track down the fault then you will need to call an electrician who will test the installation

 

[Inteificio]

Start the search on anything with filters or power supplies (pay most attention to the fridge).

Last time I had this issue it was my Cd player.
Temporarily disconnecting the earth on the player rapidly put a few hundred volts on the chassis.
The sensitivity of my equipment could not detect any current though.

Could not work out where the leak was coming from (electronics geek, but this was above me).

So put in a dedicated spur just for the Hifi bypassing the RCD.
Also put some bonding on the CD player too.

There are quite a few things I would do in my own house I would not dream of doing in a clients.

Just to really point out the obvious, what I did was dangerous, so don't do it.

 

[SPARTYKUS]

Any outside lights spurred off sockets? They can be tinkers with rain. Last appliance I found was kettle.

Might be a dodgy RCD, get an electrician in ! Pay the money!!