RCD or the appliance?

[Malarky]

House rewired at considerable cost during last 2 weeks.  Yesterday bloke says it's finished.  Today, I plugged the vacuum into the hallway socket and the downstairs circuit trips (same vacuum cleaner never tripped my old house btw).    Then plugged vacuum into upstairs landing socket and they didn't trip... but the upstairs lights did.  Only the upstairs lights.   Yeah, so vacuuming in the gloom and pretty confused as to why the lights went but the upstairs sockets didn't trip.    Can someone shed some light on this (pun intended) and what could be going on.        Is it likely the appliance, the RCD or something not right with the fixed wiring?    Haven't spoken to the electrician yet but will definitely be speaking to him on Monday about this and the 3 socket boxes he left not properly screwed in (mains on),  one with a nice almost 2 cm gap for my kid to get his fingers/hand into if he so chose.    ,

 

[Evans Electric]

Get him back Malarky .   

Could be a few things  in the hall ,   he may have a neutral in the wrong bar  etc  .    Does it trip every single time ?     Does it trip with something else plugged in ? 

Upstairs , however ,   HHmmmmm!!   You plugged the vac in and the lights tripped  ...BUT NOT THE SOCKET!! 

Do you have an RCD type trip  for every circuit ?   (Called an RCBO)    Or is the house divided across two separate  larger type   RCD's  ? 

 

[Malarky]

'Course I should've plugged in the drill or something else to see if it also tripped with different appliance.  Will try this later.  Yeah, I really don't understand the lights going upstairs but not the socket.  Don't know about RCBO for every circuit or 2 larger RCDs... haven't looked at the CU as they only finished yesterday.  Might photo and post.   He's definitely in on Monday!  

 

[Murdoch]

Fingers crossed you haven’t paid him

did he provide a certificate?

 

[Evans Electric]

Just have a quick look ... either they all look the same   (RCBO's)    or there will be two fat ones  (  Dual RCD   ...half the house on the one ...half the house on the other) .

Any chance you could ,  say,   plug a light in the upstairs socket  then flick the breakers off until light goes off ....note which breaker it is ,  what size, what it's marked up as.     

Did you have RCDs before  the rewire  or was it the old style fuseboard. ? 

 

[Sidney]

Is it the same RCD tripping or different one?

 

[Malarky]

Dual RCD. Yes same one trips. This photo was taken after drill inserted in downstairs socket tripped.  Exact same trip when vac is plugged into landing socket.  Upstairs socket keeps working but circuit in pic trips and upstairs lights go off.

I'll stick with teaching 9 year-olds. At least I'm familiar with their behaviour!

No we haven't paid the total, only initial 25%.

Does that wiring look ok? We also have a powerful extractor which isn't fitted yet... not sure where he's put that and if it should have it's own circuit like the cooker. 

 

[Geoff1946]

Good chance they have a neutral in the wrong bar. Minor fix once worked out.

 

[Murdoch]

I would suggest you withhold payment until this problem is fixed, you have the EIC and part p notification ......

 

[Evans Electric]

What size is that breaker  ,  tried to blow it up but it's too blurred .  ?     

I'm thinking neutrals too  but why the hell are the lights going out ?

 

[Tony S]

Something else you should ask your electrician about. Why are the smoke detectors on a separate circuit and not one of the lighting circuits? In the event of a fault on the smokes you won’t know about it, if the lights fault you will.

 

[Evans Electric]

Something else you should ask your electrician about. Why are the smoke detectors on a separate circuit and not one of the lighting circuits? In the event of a fault on the smokes you won’t know about it, if the lights fault you will.

I'd second that .   Had a customer who thought they had working detectors ....I noticed a breaker in the OFF position ,,,he said its a spare .

But it had a cable connected ....turned out to be the Smoke detectors  ,  no batteries ,  never been powered up since they bought the house. 

Get him to feed them from a lighting circuit  ...as Tony says !

 

[Malarky]

Thanks for that about the smoke detectors, will definitely ask him to put them with the lights. 

Better pic?  I wish I knew why the lights are going out too Evans!

 

[Murdoch]

The lights go out because the rcd tripped

 

[Evans Electric]

The lights go out because the rcd tripped

I thought he meant the breaker tripped the lights 

 

[Tony S]

Originally so did I.

 

[Evans Electric]

The lights go out because the rcd tripped

Murdo is right ...I didn't notice the RCD  was off .    

Do we have   TWO faults here  ?    The ground floor hall socket is tripping the RCD    ( Hence the 1st floor lights  are off)   

The landing socket is tripping the MCB   ( which is a 20A   type B )   

 

[Malarky]

And now this! This is the under counter appliance switch for washing machine.

That isn't right, is it? Looks wrong. Appliance socket right next to wm waste pipe, too close and too low. Opinions please.  What regs are there for under counter sockets... I only know 30cms from sink. 

 

[Murdoch]

^^ there is no reg in BS 7671 about proximity to sinks ..... but that smacks of not thinking about the job in hand

 

[ProDave]

Murdo is right ...I didn't notice the RCD  was off .    

Do we have   TWO faults here  ?    The ground floor hall socket is tripping the RCD    ( Hence the 1st floor lights  are off)   

The landing socket is tripping the MCB   ( which is a 20A   type B )   

I thought that unlabelled mcb was off, simply because it was spare and not used?