electrican needed for advice please.

kmufc77

kmufc77

kmufc77

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Hi last night in my house i switched off the lights downstairs in the front room i soon as the switch was pushed down every single light in the house went off?

i went to the fuse box and the light switch had tripped so i had to turn it on again all the lights are fine again now.

Is this a serious problem to worry about? what would be causing this please?
 
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Usually only happens to me when a bulb blows. Checked the lights controlled by that switch to see if they're all working?
 
Did a bulb blow at the same time. If a bulb blows in either of the lighting circuits in my house it trips the breaker. Been told it's nothing to worry about by a sparky mate.
 
kefkef said:
Did a bulb blow at the same time. If a bulb blows in either of the lighting circuits in my house it trips the breaker. Been told it's nothing to worry about by a sparky mate.
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This is what should happen and its a safety feature, if a bulb blows that ring goes down.
 
Same for my house, bulb blows downstairs or upstairs and it trips the breaker for that area.

Nowt to worry about :)
 
waso_dude said:
This is what should happen and its a safety feature, if a bulb blows that ring goes down.
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Don't spout rubish, the only way a light bulb can trip out the circuit is if when it fails it fails to a short circuit rather than a broken one. This only tends to happen with cheap halogen spots and CF's. It is certainly not a saftey feature of what benefit would plunging the house into darkness every time a bulb blows bee?
 
a1ex2001 said:
This only tends to happen with cheap halogen spots and CF's. ?
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And Homebase own brand R50's...I swear every second or third one of them that went would trip the lighting circuit, and every 5th would explode (and they never lasted more than about 3-4 weeks each), oddly enough they're the only bulbs i've ever had trouble with (including other brands of R50, including some really cheap ones).
 
Keep an eye on it and see if it does it again. If the light switch was an MK one you wouldn't have that problem ;)
 
is it just the lights or is it everything gets killed?
How old is your setup i.e do you have individual mcb and rcd.

not really a issue unless it does it constantly, juat meaned your circuits drawn more than the mcb allowed,
if it keeps happening check lamps to make sure that their correct wattage and are working normally.
Check the lamp holders for loose wiring aka shorts,
Replace the mcb with a same SIZED componant as it could be faulty.

If it still keeps happening get a sparky to look at your Rcd, as its been raining you could have a short thats tripping it.


over than that rewire the whole house up to the semi retarded 17th edition guide lines, and increase house price;)
 
A bit off topic but are the R50's going to be phased out to fall inline with all the new energy saving bulb regulations?
 
I have the Osram halogen R50 lamps after the ones I had kept popping and I got bored waiting for the Ikea fluorescent version to get bright. Been in my light fitting for nearly 2 years now, couldn't be happier.

And I think halogen counts as energy saving or at least isn't phased out so no need to worry about replacements.
 
Caged, oddly enough the Ikea R50's I've got seem to have settled down - it took about 6 months of them taking ages (1 minute+) to reach a good brightness, but now they reach it within a few seconds (a cheapy Morrisons energy saving R50 seemed to reach working brightness pretty fast from the word go).

I'm never using filament R50's again after all the hassle we had with them:)
 
Thanks for all your replys

Lol ive had another light blow tonight thats about 6 in 2 weeks! all in differents room aswell ,have to arrange for someone to come around the house,something is defo wrong with the wiring.
 
kefkef said:
Did a bulb blow at the same time. If a bulb blows in either of the lighting circuits in my house it trips the breaker. Been told it's nothing to worry about by a sparky mate.
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yes a bulb did blow at the same time a halogen in the front room.
 
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Abraxaz1 said:
is it just the lights or is it everything gets killed?
How old is your setup i.e do you have individual mcb and rcd.

not really a issue unless it does it constantly, juat meaned your circuits drawn more than the mcb allowed,
if it keeps happening check lamps to make sure that their correct wattage and are working normally.
Check the lamp holders for loose wiring aka shorts,
Replace the mcb with a same SIZED componant as it could be faulty.

If it still keeps happening get a sparky to look at your Rcd, as its been raining you could have a short thats tripping it.


over than that rewire the whole house up to the semi retarded 17th edition guide lines, and increase house price;)
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only the lights tripped last night everything else was fine.
house is around 15 years old not sure how old the setup is of the electric fuse /switch box.
 
If 6 lights have all blown in different rooms, it could well be that they were reaching the end of their life... If you put in 3 new bulbs at the same time into 3 rooms that you use fairly equally then you would expect them all to blow at around the same time. Admittedly 6 in 2 weeks seems a little odd, but chance has a funny way of appearing to be planned ;)

My lighting circuits also trip when a bulb blows, and filament bulbs blow pretty frequently in my house - moving over to energy saving ones though and they seem fine :)

edit: Just seen that you did have a bulb blow at the same time as the trip. Don't worry about it imo
 
dodgem said:
If 6 lights have all blown in different rooms, it could well be that they were reaching the end of their life... If you put in 3 new bulbs at the same time into 3 rooms that you use fairly equally then you would expect them all to blow at around the same time. Admittedly 6 in 2 weeks seems a little odd, but chance has a funny way of appearing to be planned ;)

My lighting circuits also trip when a bulb blows, and filament bulbs blow pretty frequently in my house - moving over to energy saving ones though and they seem fine :)
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no 3 of the lights in the kitchen were brand new,next day all 3 blew.
when i had my flat i had energy bulbs in every room and didnt have one problem,in my house now i have no energy bulbs at all,only 40w halogen and standard bulbs,think i may fork out a bit and try some more expensive halogens and replace standard bulbs with energy savers.
 
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