You are correct, Roger. CB number 7 is the _only_ circuit fed from the RCCB. Switching the other circuits 1-6 on one by one won't trip the RCCB even if there was a fault on one of these circuits.
@@waterboy8999 context is important here - particularly which edition of the Wiring Regs applied at the time this board was installed. My existing DB has an RCCB main switch and just single-pole breakers for each circuit , so ANY residual current fault takes out the whole installation - not great. In other words my DB looks like what you suggest - RCCB 'first'. I'm in the process of ordering and installing its replacement.
Roger, I've been through this process so many times and it's the kettle every time! Great fun to do, very rewarding and always attracts brownie points from the wife!
@@SkillBuilder kettle, toaster, and off course ovens. We dealt with dozens of callouts during the lockdowns from people who've never used their oven before but suddenly decided to start baking bread
I saved Christmas day one year doing a bit of this. I smiled when you put the cooker breaker up and said "cooker OK". I was thinking - check the oven, check the grill, do the rings one at a time! We had one ring that was taking out the whole house.
Good idea. What I did here was to go to the house and even though I could have just concentrated on the kitchen appliances I wanted to show how you would go about it if you were a householder. All those trailing sockets just added to the shock horror of the situation.
The kettle was plugged in to another socket to re confirm that it was the kettle. Note that the point was switched on & the kettle switch was the one which was being turned on!
Good stuff Roger. Sometimes the appliance may need to be put on load to show the fault as you intimated regarding the immersion heater. 90% of the time its a water related item, Kettle, washing machine, immersion, or where liquid ingress can happen i.e. exterior sockets or exterior lights, even Electric cookers.
Nice one Roger, very helpful diagnostic for most people. The house looks like it is a bit of a pickle, wires and all and no protection on those left hand circuits. Not so good.
Exactly the same happened to me - it was the kettle although I did not need a new kettle. On examination I realised that when filling with water I had inadvertently splashed the socket so when I plugged it in it tripped the breaker. After a few hours to let it dry out all was well. Note at 2:12 in your video the RCD is off so I guess that was just a mistake whilst filming!
Nice work! My money was on the multiple trailing leads with all the electronics attached. Most electronic kit uses switched-mode power supplies to create the DC to drive stuff like PCs, laptops, phones etc. I've read each power supply can 'leak' between 1 to 3 milliamps. So if you have a number of devices on a spur/ring with a 30 milliamp upstream RCD, you can reach that limit pretty easily! That being said I've got lots of power supply stuff in my house and its not tripped due to that - yet!
Ahhhh you bring back memories. Had a similar problem except we never isolated to one device. Happened enough to be a big nuisance but every test sequence gave a different unrepeatable culprit. Finally got the electrician. No diagnosis either but he agreed to install separate fuse-RCD switch units for each circuit. No problem since. Apparently the combined RCD detector was failing,
@@McMonkeyful We see it a lot (professional sparky). Especially with type AC rcds (the older simpler ones) and a lot of modern appliances. Modern appliances tend to have leakage to earth due to the filters they have to have to comply with EMC requirements, a couple of milliamps each soon adds up!
@@TheChipmunk2008 I work for a DNO & often deal with enquiries where there is regular tripping but no obvious internal cause or history of switching on our network. At that point, it can be difficult to ascertain whether the fault could be internal or external. Comments sections like this are a great way to share knowledge & experience. I learn new things every day.
@@McMonkeyful Always amazes me how clueless a lot of people are about their electrics, one lady we did a quote for recently didn't have a CLUE what a fusebox was, let alone where it was... HOW?!
He wasn't testing that, it was clean. It was the other circuit. Shame the house wasn't clean though. Damn Roger, I hope you had a scrub after leaving that place. Trip hazard, greasy slip hazard, electrical hazard, fly hazard and a bucket on a shelf hazard, just a HAZARD. Also, I wouldn't want a cuppa made from that kettle, glad they got a new one, still wouldn't want a cuppa though.
@@Lee.Willcox No - he was testing which circuit was causing the RCD to trip, which is what he did at 1:10. When he did the same test at 2:16 the RCD was already tripped, so he was not able to confirm that the ring main was now good. Maybe later he realised, but not at that point...
Many years ago when rewireable fuses were still common place If you were called out on a Monday the first thing I would ask the customer was have you done any DIY over the weekend, no would usually be the first answer then I'd ask if they'd hung any pictures up, sure enough a great streak of blackness showing above the picture frame was often the give away.
That would be me! Put a nail through a downstairs wall at a weekend over Xmas, just above a light switch - what a prat as I assumed the cable ran down to the meter cupboard - not up and over....but yep weekend DIY and a scorched nail was the fun I had in a house full of Xmas lights - hiding the fact the downstairs lighting ring didn't work.... muppet....
Moved into my new build 21 years ago almost the top thing in our car was the kettle. 5.15pm ( Friday) plugged in the kettle and the whole house electrics blew. Ran over to the site manager and he found an electrician almost 60 miles away to come out to use. 6.45pm he arrived . Went over the whole house and discovered the kitchen socket had water in it. Couldn’t find a leak anywhere, replaced the socket and everything worked. When he’d gone I had a moment of clarity - there was one thing resting on top of box carry the kettle - the cat travel basket. Turned out the cat had got nervous and pissed in the basket, running into the kettle plug just below. 😂
I'd like to see this made in the style of the old Discovery Channel air disaster documentaries: 6 hours ealier, twenty miles away a man is making an innocuous decision that will have disatrous consequences Here kitty kitty.... Meow
Some of those sockets and even the consumer board itself have got "dated" written all over them. This might not be a problem per se but I know that when we had our consumer board updated, suddenly the bar fridge in the conservatory was tripping out everything on the same circuit, which was basically 80% of the sockets in the house. This never happened before the consumer unit upgrade. If you upgrade the consumer unit, expect more appliances (which used to work before) to trip for no apparent reason.
One time I was following a wire up the stairs in a clatty house, on my hands and knees, got to the top, turned the corner and right in my face two dog shites, that's when I started looking closely, and there were rabbit tollies too.
My microwave was tripping the power and I was going to arrange to return it as I thought it was faulty. No the fault was all mine! Without noticing I somehow splashed water into the socket. Given 1-2 days to dry off all was good again 🙂
I got mine upgraded recently. My old one looked not to even older to the one in the video. My new one has more switches available and seems to be in two sets, it has an RCD breaker for each set. My upstairs and downstairs sockets and lights are separated and the other major power users, cooker, shower etc are all seperate. I'm sure someone can explain it better than I did. We needed some new sockets put I'm and an upgraded wire for the new shower so I got the sparky from work to do it for me, he really didn't want to do work on the old fuse board and, quite rightly, told us to get a new one ASAP.
@@NLPexpertsThere is a main switch if you just want to add or replace a breaker. But replacing the entire board is not a typical DIY job, even if you know your volts from your amps. Get someone who does this all day every day to do it right.
it could be cumaltive leakage, enough small leakages add up and get high enough to trip out the rcd, over time rcd's can degrade, I have had experience with MK rated at 30mA failing test as low as 17mA.
The consumer unit is an old split one with one rcd for the sockets only . This was common years ago as all the other circuits were classed as fixed equipment, like the immersion and shower etc . The main risk at that time was from hand held appliances and things like the lawn mower . The appliance check you did would always be the first thing but don't forget things like washing machines as you sometimes can't get to the plug . The common cause of rcd tripping is faulty heating elements like I kettles , washing machines etc
When you unplugged the kettle there were brown marks on the socket, could just be grubby and in need of a clean but more importantly it could be from something overheating.
I have a UK , 1950's FUSE BOX ... and I am VERY proud of it ... the ONLY time a fuse blew ( for over 60 years ) was when my outside light's rubber cable developed a short .... ( how difficult is it , to re - wire a blown fuse ) ? ? ... DAVE™🛑
Roger is correct in saying the fire risk is much greater with a rewireable fuse than a MCB as a MCB will trip much quicker & much closer to the Nominal rated current of the protective device. Whats more important to understand is neither a rewireable fuse or a MCB will protect you from an electric shock , that's the job of the RCD . Fuses & MCB's are over current protection devices which are there basically to prevent cables from overheating caused by prolonged overloading & provide short circuit protection. RCD's should be tested regularly to ensure correct operation, a basic test is to push the test button, which will confirm it is operating, but not necessarily correctly, this will require an electrician with the correct test equipment, which will confirm that the RCD trips with the correct time measured in milliseconds & at a leakage current of between 18-28 milliamps approximately from memory depending on type of device. Again from memory I think it only takes a current of 50 milliamps across your heart to cause a carrdiac arrest, it is a tiny current & the RCD can prevent this if working correctly!
Electrical contractor retired , always a difficult call as regards what is obviously required and what the customer can actually afford to do . Or in reality are prepared to do , if the inspection is non invasive as in Rodgers case and remedy is found . Then it is the customers responsibility to rectify the defective equipment , if how ever an electrician finds more serious problems and defects , it’s his or hers responsibility to inform the client of your concerns and preferably include a letter detailing your concerns . Obviously if the electrician has gone as far as doing various test readings then they also should be copied and passed on to the client . The days of switching everything off and walking away are long gone . So this is a last resort proses , that has to be given with extreme care . Always make sure you have covered your self if the worst comes to worst , and if necessary be able to stand in a court of law and defend your actions . We always adopted this policy , as it might be the client, but family members or friends that choose to be less than understanding .
Not an electrician a mate who knew very little asked me to sort out problems he was having in the ex council house he'd bought. There was an additional ring main fitted that covered a utility room and outhouse, spurred off the lighting circuit. Told him to get a sparks in and rewire.
Looks like there is some space left for a separate 16A breaker to power the kitchen wall sockets. 32A should not be used in homes aa the wiring is generally just too thin to carry the load and a defective appliance could just fry these wires inside the walls without tripping the 32A breaker.
Huh? British ring final circuits can carry 32A all day long, the only concern is if the ring is broken and I come across less ring faults on 60 year old unmolested installs.
@@edc1569 In the Netherlands most breakers are 16A and the wiring 2.5 mm2. This may be different in the UK, but I would still rather have 2 breakers with 16A each instead of a single 32A breaker supplying every wall socket in the home. 32A is pretty hard to trigger with a single faulty appliance.
Our appliances also have fused on the plug so for an appliance fault that will blow before the breaker in most circumstances. Obviously not for small leakage but RCDs and rcbos are very common now
@@HA05GER The whole ring setup for wall outlets in the UK looks nice for redundancy, but counting on the ring to be 100% intact for sizing the breaker seems risky to me. I would still prefer to only size it for the worst case with a 16A breaker per ring or use 4 mm2 cables for the ring if it really has to support 32A of equipment. But maybe that's just my OCD kicking in.
Hi it was about building sites banning listing to the radio, he raised some good points, I wonder if he phoned in or the research team contacted him for his wise opinion
It is almost always the bloody kettle. The insulation inside the heating element eventually breaks down due to the constant heat/cool cycles and this allows a current to leak to earth. Same thing with electric rings on cookers and hobs.
Those surge protection extension leads can go rogue also - we had a trip fault, took me ages to figure out when the TV powered up the electrics sometimes when off. It was the extension lead which was duly thrown in the bin 😂
@ 3:00 - I usually don’t like this way of testing the appliances - you can ruin your sockets and it can be more scary for the owner because he might see a spark … The least invasive way is to unplug something then pull up the breaker again
2:12 at this point, the RCD is off so it won't trip but this is the correct process. When customers call, this is what I tell them to do. Also, as this fault is tripping the RCD, it won't be a class II device causing the fault. If the fault is Neural to Earth, turning off the MCB won't stop the RCD tripping so you should still unplug everything in that case.
AHH well you see a lot of kettles are class 2 by label but will have earth continuity via the element. They are a weird flaw in the class system. I used to do pat and most kettles are this way.
Roger kettle looks a bit old and tired and probably boiled swimming pool amounts of water😂 a new kettle and check as you did again. Those white adaptors not good, suggest they don't use👍
To all the Thomas Edison's on here saying the place is a fire hazard and to remove all the extensions and re wire. Ok in theory it would be nice to rewire and have a double socket in every corner of every room but at what cost? and up disruption. The extensions may be unsightly and a trip hazard but as long as they are in good condition then there is nothing wrong with them, after all if a multi socket extension was a hazard they would not make them. To calculate the load a circuit can take it is volts 230 x current rating 32 amp so 7360 watts. So he could have the kettle on and 5000 watts spare. A big tv could be 200 watts so that leaves capacity for 25 tvs to be running.
You'll think I'm making this up but I'm not... When I was toasting teacakes (no, not the Tunnocks variety) in a toaster, they would often trip the circuit breaker to the point I thought the toaster was knackered but I believe the fruit IN them was making contact with the electrical element in the toaster causing the breaker to trip. It's never done it since as I usually 'squash' the teacakes so they easily into the slots.
Hi Mark Any moisture in the bread or tea cake will short the toaster. Also sticking a knife down there to remove stuck bread is not a good idea, as I explained to one customer.
They need to ditch those adaptor blocks, get a sparkie to install a bigger and better board and get more sockets installed to avoid the adaptors. I'd run a mile from that place as it is.
It's far from ideal but it's unlikely all the appliances plugged into the strip will be running at once & If they do put too much load onto the system, the breaker should activate. UK wiring is amazingly resilient to this kind of abuse, though I totally agree that an upgrade would be advisable.
If it is the RCCB , then it is a small leakage of current (30 milli amps going from the 230v wire to the ground instead of the 0 wire. In this case it is dangerous as the human body can't handle much more. But if it is just a simple fuse or breaker then I suspect that there is either something short circuiting (appliance or wire) or you might have some other appliances on the same fuse that is too powerful. The easiest way to make sure is to turn of breakers/fuses one at a time and write down what does not work and check how much power that uses worst case. In general anything over 2000W should have it's own breaker/fuse and combined you should multiply the amps on the fuse by 230V to know how much Watt it can take before tripping. So for example if the dishwasher is 1800W and the oven is 2000W, you should not combine these on a 16A breaker (16x230= 3680W)
Don't get mixed up between fuse/MCB and a RCD they are totally different. Fuse/MCB is looking for an over-current, this can be a fault or just too high a load on that circuit. A RCD isn't looking for an over-current but an imbalance between the live and neutral currents.
Pretty common back in the day. I only have two rings one for lights one for sockets (including shower) all off old fashioned wire fuses. It will get upgraded in the future. Not ideal with no RCD on the shower but at least there's not an electric cooker trying to run off the ring main as well.
Literally what the ring final circuit was designed to do. The wiring is not at risk as it’s protected by the breaker and a breaker is never meant to protect an appliance, the plug fuse will protect the flex to the appliance.
Not a given these days but I'd hope this would be the first thing most people tried on their own. I'd also try plugging the offending applience into a different socket to double check it is the appliance and not the socket or the wiring into that socket.
I'd estimate 90% of the UK population have no idea what an RCD switch is or what it does. Of that 90%, I'd estimate only half have the common sense to turn everything off & back on again, let alone work out how to isolate the fault. You would be amazed by the number of people who think that just looking at the main on/off switch is sufficient before they call the electric board or an electrician. Am I saying the UK has a large percentage of mouth breathers? Yes I am
Looking at the consumer unit it seems from the layout that the only circuit on the rcd is the sockets so none of the others would activate the rcd but he is a plumber which is a sparky with his brain remved
If I had started by saying "Work out which circuits are protected by the RCD" I would have lost half the audience That is why dim plumbers can explain things better than bright sparkies. 😀
Rodger didnt want to shine a light on the problem. The problem is too many plugs in plug boards and multi sockets. Hope you checked his smoke alarm he'll need it.
That is A problem but not THE problem in this instance. I expect he would have advised the homeowner to get an electrician in but looking at the state of the house, it doesn't look like they would have the means to pay for an upgrade. A lot of elderly people live like this sadly.
Yes of course ! wired fuses CAN cause a fire , if lazy folk just bung any handy bit of wire in them ( steel garden wire will glow red hot ! ) ... it is a good idea to have a few spare pre - wired fuse carriers ( white dot 5 Amp , blue dot 15 Amp and red dot 30 Amp ) this gives a reconnection as fast as flicking on a MCB ! .... I use a plug in RCB for outdoor activities , but the ones at the distribution board can trip in thunderstorms ( plunging the WHOLE house into darkness ! ) ... and .... certain heating elements ( sandwich grills ) , stored in a damp shed for 5 years , will trip the RCD ( until the powder in the element dries out ! ) ... also ... there is so much inside a MCB , ( rarely ) some have even caught fire ! new technology is not always the best , and even so called SMART meters have a bistable relay in them .... this means that some numpty can remotely disconnect you , I would find this annoying at 3am ! ( not possible with the older meters ! ) ....... DAVE™🛑
I can trigger them all day long. It used to be called a ring main, live is now line and so they go on. Give it ten years and they will be back to calling it live and will probably change the colour from brown to red.
All those trailing sockets and multiplugs.......What are you doing in my house? That aside, when I had a circuit breaker that kept tripping it turned out that was the fault, changed it, problem solved.
2:13 umm the RCD is still off, turn that on, and then try the last circuit, and you might have proved something, but I guess you figured that out off camera.. Otherwise, not bad. Thanks for not opening the board, there really was not need.
@@saulgoodman2018 No. A MCB circuit breaker trips when the current exceeds the breaker's amp rating. This is to prevent the wires from overheating & potentially catching fire. An RCD switch detects an imbalance in the current, which indicates leakage to earth. As that leakage to earth could potentially be going through a human, it is designed to activate before they are electrocuted.
In Roger's video, the bank of switches to the left & the two to the right were all MCBs, each with an amp rating. The two to the right were also protected by the RCD switch. Ideally, all of the circuits would be protected by the RCD. The board really needs to be upgraded & some additional sockets installed, to eliminate the need for all those extension strips. That costs money though &, judging from the state of the house, the homeowner probably can't afford the work. Sad to see, but a reality for many in the UK.
Is it tripping the RCD switch (as in this video) or the MCB for the shower circuit? I will let a qualified electrician answer the question but they will need to know which is tripping to help diagnose potential causes.
