Electricians Look Here Please

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Soldato
Joined
21 Jul 2004
Posts
6,360
Location
Harrow, UK
We have had an issue with our home electrics for quite a while now, where irons trip the circuit breaker which turns off all the sockets in the house.

We found that turning the steam function off in the iron stops the problem, or even buying a new iron helps for a few months, before the problem starts again.

Now the electrics are fairly old, so that could be one explanation, but I am just curious to find out what the issue could be. All other appliances in the house work as they should.

Could we put anything in between the plug socket and iron to stop it tripping the circuit breaker - I am not to keen on my PC turning off every time someone wants to iron their clothes :(
 
Sounds like the breaker is on the way out, being overly sensitive to jumps in current. Does it do the same thing is you turn on other high drain stuff (fan heater, hair drier, etc)

Is the kitchen on a separate circuit? Electric/gas cooker?
 
SB118 said:
Sounds like the breaker is on the way out, being overly sensitive to jumps in current. Does it do the same thing is you turn on other high drain stuff (fan heater, hair drier, etc)

Is the kitchen on a separate circuit? Electric/gas cooker?
Click to expand...

Nothing else in the house trips the circuit - tested heaters, AC units, driers etc. We have tried the iron in different rooms but that does not help either.

The fridge and cooker sockets are on a different circuit, so I could try and running an extension lead from them into the living room and seeing if that makes a difference.
 
One of the single socket plug in RCD's should do the trick shouldn't it? Will just trip off that instead of the whole house instead.
 
They cost about £5 from any DIY store, I once even saw them in Woolworths. "RCD" stands for "Residual Current Device". They have a 'Reset' and 'Off' button on them usually and a red light/indicator to say when the power is on. You plug it into the plug socket and then the electrical appliance into the RCD.
 
That looks like you've got an Earth Leakage Current Breaker (ELCB) in your fuse box which is sort of an early RCD but not as good. An RCD, in layman terms, detects the difference between the power going out and coming back in and if it's different it trips as some power must be leaking to earth somewhere.
I'd get it looked at properly if I were you :)
 
An RCD is Residual current device that detects earth leakage.

Sounds like a faulty iron to me if its dripping the RCD

This is an RCD Plug

230468165


That will save the main RCD tripping, but id invest in a new iron.
 
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jaybee said:
This happens in mine and my mums house from time to time. I generally thought it was a sign of the iron being poor?
Click to expand...

Carl said:
That will save the main breaker tripping, but id invest in a new iron.
Click to expand...

The iron that tripped the circuit today is only 3 weeks old and its not some cheapy one either - it's a £40 Bosch one. We have established that it isn't the iron because every iron we buy does that, and we have gone through over 7 irons in the last 15 years :(

Right, I will try and buy one of those RCDs and see if that helps :)

/Edit: Is this what I am looking for:
http://www.screwfix.com/prods/44855/Electrical-Supplies/RCDs/Masterplug-RCD-Plug
 
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OMG lots of confusing advice above.
I would say that a faulty Iron would be the first place to look, this could be confirmed by tryng the suspected iron in a socket on a different circuit in your house or alternatively try the iron on a RCD protected circuit in someone else's house.

240V
60A D.P.
30mA Trip

This is a 60 Amp double pole RCD and should be protecting a number of circuit breakers, usually to the left of it. One of which will be the circuit your iron is plugged into.

I would suggest that you consider how you store your irons, do you put them away full of water? Is water getting inside the iron?

Other than that you would need a RCD test doing on the circuit you are having problems with by a CG 2391 qualified test engineer.

The other thing to try is plugging an electric kettle or fan heater into the socket you are having problems with. Usually if it is a faulty RCD any number of electrical appliances would cause the RCD to trip.
 
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Carl said:
An RCD is Residual current device that detects earth leakage.

Sounds like a faulty iron to me if its dripping the breaker, also the breaker supplying your sockets should only be 32A if its a ring and 20A if its a radial. Not 60A. The only things that require 40/60A breakers in normal house are cookers or power showers.

This is an RCD Plug

snip

That will save the main breaker tripping, but id invest in a new iron.
Click to expand...

Can you use a breaker and a timer at the same time?
 
Danger Phoenix said:
The iron that tripped the circuit today is only 3 weeks old and its not some cheapy one either - it's a £40 Bosch one. We have established that it isn't the iron because every iron we buy does that, and we have gone through over 7 irons in the last 15 years :(

Right, I will try and buy one of those RCDs and see if that helps :)

/Edit: Is this what I am looking for:
http://www.screwfix.com/prods/44855/Electrical-Supplies/RCDs/Masterplug-RCD-Plug
Click to expand...

That one is for hardwiring, you want one you can plug your iron straight into like this :)

http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wc...lay?langId=-1&storeId=20001&partNumber=732863
 
BigglesPiP said:
Where has the assumption that the RCD closest to the device is the one that will trip 1st come from?
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It depends on which one is more sensitive if they are both the same rating as well as a load of other factors!

Problem can be solved by getting a 25mA 13A Socket RCD as this will definitely trip first as it detects an imbalance of 25mA between Phase and Neutral instead of 30mA like the RCD in the CCU.


SkodaMart said:
Hows that going to help? Is he mowing the grass outside the equipotential zone?
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It will stop the CCU's RCD from activating and thus stop his computer from being crashed every time the Iron misbehaves!
 
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All this electrical talk is just going above my head, so can someone please explain it in simpler terms?

I know that it is definitely NOT the iron as it seems to happen to every iron we have bought, and we don't be cheap ones either. We don't leave the water in the iron after we have finished using it - the water is drained every time. The current iron is only 3 weeks old so unless it's faulty (which I very much doubt) it is not the root of the problem. All irons have been tried in various sockets around the house and the circuit still trips.


The images below show our circuit breaker, and I have circled in red the switch that is turning off:



I don't know if those images help in the slightest, but I thought they would provide far more information than I can give :p

/Edit: Oh, I have just noticed that it says "Earth Leakage" next to the switch that is tripping, so I guess that is what is happening :(
 
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