Any sparkies out there?

[LewisM]

One of the flats we own had a power outage at 0020 this morning (I got the call at 3am from one tenant ). They reported another tenant was in the kitchen and flicked a switch, and the power died. One tenant checked the fuse box, and said the safety pack switch was the only off switch, indicating the SP had been triggered.

I reset the SP, and no go. Checked everything else - no go. The SP won't reset - I flick it up to on, and it STAYS on - doesn't trigger off, so there is no live circuit any more.

Now, the junction box in the complex was checked - all good, but of course the meter reads ZERO for our unit (the other units have no issue). Yes, the power bills are up to date (in credit actually). Of course, the private electricity company is shut for the weekend, and no 24hr emergency number.. got to hate body corporate supply!

What I am thinking is dead safety pack. Something blew the living poop out of it (and we will need to find out WHAT!).

Question: do the SP's need a current for the test trigger to work, or is the test trigger merely mechanical? I am thinking that if the SP is dead, the test trigger won't work. If the supply is dead, it's a redundant question

[atkinsonr (Rich)]

Lewis,

I'm not a sparky but if it's a modern safety switch, they do require current to work.

They work by detecting a "loss" of electricity in the circuit. The theory being that if electricity is passing through a person to the ground, that electricity is "lost", the safety switch detects this and breaks the circuit.

The test button simply leaks some current to the Earth, otherwise it wouldn't be a real test.

To find if there's power to the board you can wave a stud finder in front of it and listen for the inducted 50hz hum.

Best bet is to call a sparky.

[RD400C (Garth)]

Did you get this fixed, as I was a sparkie and there are some basic steps you can do when trying to fault find when a circuit breaker trips.

[LewisM]

Not yet - likely tomorrow. Appreciate any advice

[acropolite (Phil)]

Lewis, any time I've seen an RCD trip it has been due to a faulty appliance, most times the kettle. You don't need much water in the kettle mechanism to cause the RCD to trip. Our kettle is prone to leakage if overfilled, often that leakage gets around the power connections in the base and the RCD trips. A raisin from fruit loaf caught between the element and grill in our toaster has on a couple of occasions caused the RCD to trip.

The best starting point would be to turn off all power points then see if the RCD will reset. If the RCD the resets OK, turn on each one in sequence until you isolate the one that trips the RCD.

Are the lights still working? RCD's are usually only on the power point circuits and not on the lighting circuits.

It could also be leakage in your wiring or power points, I've seen ants occupy power points and light switches, crawling inside the mechanisms only to be electricuted and dye in the switch.

[Barrykgerdes]

The earth leakage cut out is a very sensitive trigger designed to trip at the slightest leakage. I have seen them fail and and be not be re-setable after tripping even after the faulty circuit has been isolated

As Phil says the most common leakage is in electric kettles a toasters for the reasons stated

Barry

[LewisM]

THanks, but I guess I didn't describe well.

When I flick the RCD back to the live position, it stays there. Hitting the test trigger does NOTHING - so either the RCD is DEAD/fried, or there is NO juice coming down the wire into the flat.

Time will tell tomorrow. First ringing body corporate and their power subsidiary, and if that all pans out AOK as it should, I call a sparky.

[drylander (Peter)]

Had our RCD replaced due to the same problem and the sparky mentioned they do have a use by date like most stuff. He replaced it and all is good with the world again. Ours was about 15 years old
Pete

[Kunama]

Sounds like the problem is in the meterbox that supplies the power to the RCD.
Once you restore power if the rcd starts to trip again you have to actually pull the plug out of the wall on each appliance in order to reset the rcd , then plug the appliances back in one at a time and test appliance until you find the one that trips it.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

It does sound like your RCD is dead or you are off supply upstream of that. Once that is sorted, if you still have the RCD tripping you can also start by turning off all other breakers before resetting the RCD then start turning them back on one at a time to find which circuit is causing the trip. After that you could start unplugging appliances on that circuit until you find the culprit.

You say that the meter reads zero for your unit? Do you mean there is no supply there? The supply fuse upstream of the meter may be blown, in which case there is probably a really crook appliance at fault that may be drawing really excessive current, but you would hope one of your own breakers would trip (I assume you have a breaker board and not an ild style fuse board?) before the supply fuse popped.

If the supply fuse for you rmeter has blown then nothing you do at your board will make any difference.

[LewisM]

IT was the supply fuse. Bloody Body Corporate had no contact for 2 days. All it took was to flick the main switch in the universal bus, and NOT ONE of the security knew protocol of who to ring to do this.

Heads will roll! At least, for now, management has given our tenants free washing for a week. Small recompense IMHO.

[RD400C (Garth)]

The basic process is this;-
If the Residual Current Device trips
Turn all other circuit breakers off [or pull all the fuses out]
Turn the RCD back on, if it remains on, push the test button
If the RCD fails to trip on test, you have either a loss of supply or a faulty RCD
If it does trip on test proceed to the next phase
Then turn the RCD back on, one at a time turn the other circuit breakers back on. You will normally find the circuit that trips the RCD. Once you know which circuit has the fault, find all appliances on that circuit and turn them all off at their power points. Reset the RCD and turn the appliances on one at a time, until you find the faulty one. Or if the RCD trips with nothing turned on you have a faulty circuit.
Please note, that if you have fuses and not circuit breakers, you will need to turn the RCD off each time you push a fuse in, then attempt to turn the RCD back on, this is a safety issue as you may be attempting to put a fuse in on a fault that could result in a spark, and the fuses by their design have exposed live conductors, that you could touch when replacing or removing them. Hope this helps for next time