lawn mower cut neighbours electric off?

Dimple said:
Has your electric been cheap over the last few years?
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It would appear that your wiring is connected to the metered side of the neighbors trip.
In any event I would check out your supply Turn yours of at the meter and then try using it.Ask your neighbor to turn off their power and then try your supply. And what of the integrity of the incoming mains - is that via the neighbors supply? The standards of everything in the UK are so low as to be beyond belief. Just watching them build a new house and the inside walls have DPC below that of the outside walls and below ground level and they are building off the fill in blocks on the floor beams - now there's lovely!
Note:
Slamming doors and vibration can trip the supply
 
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div0 said:
Surely if if this was the case, then his lawn mower would have cut out every time the neighbours power was being tripped (by it).

On the basis that his mower is apparently unaffected by the neighbours circuit tripping, then I'd say the problem is most likely an earthing problem. How old are the properties? Are they earthed to a metal rod, or water pipe?

An electrician should be able to figure it out fairly quickly, but I'd guess at some kind of fault between neutral and earth connections.
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not if some cretin wired his and his neighbours supply into the same socket. If his neighbour consumer unit is a bit iffy it could then trip his but stay live as also drawing from op's supply
 
"andy" said:
Dodgy earth somewhere between the 2 houses

Weird that it's only your lawn mower that does it though...

If you plug something else high powered in does it do the same thing , kettle ? Microwave ? Etc?
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The mower will have a higher inrush current than those appliances, owing to the high inductance motor coils. Since it's so cheap it's probably missing an inrush limiting NTC or similar.

Sounds like a strange earthing issue tripping RCDs. Needs an electrician to investigate though, anything else is speculation.
 
Also from my understanding of meters and supplies you'll be pushed to find a 3 phase in a residential property. Each should have its own single phase tail in the property if its 3 phase youll know via either number of fuses near the meter or the size of the meter fuse. 3 phase exists for busines supplies generally or for properties with a large power draw, they will either have multiple fuses and meters or a larger meter fuse and a higher capacity meter
 
I'm going for - your lawnmower has a high impedance earth fault. Through your shared metalwork with your neighbour his installation is picking up current from this fault and causing his rcd to trip. The unknown is why your rcd isn't tripping.
 
I caught the neighbour today as they got home from Alton Towers so they didn't seem very chatty, said he hadn't had chance to call an electrician and realises it sounds a bit odd.
He kind of said it was my problem because I'm causing it and it's my mower that's the problem and if I got a new one it would be ok. His wife however thinks its odd that nothing else's causes it and let out it doesn't do it all the time but did do it 12 times monday and they had to wait until i finished and is aware it could be another appliance of their's but the mower is the initial cause.

Anyway, I think he wants to investigate further at the weekend.

I'm wondering if I should email the manufacture in the meantime or wait until I know more.
 
I'm going for a mower with inadequate / failed motor suppression cap. and in the other house... either a over sensitive or interference susceptible RCD. Or just a significant amount of capacitance to earth.

The way in which this acts is that the high frequency spikes caused by the arcing of the brushes on the universal motor in the mower are superimposed on the 50hz mains, These higher frequencies have a much higher leakage through any given capacitance than the standard mains frequency.
 
One of my mates had this issue with the cooker. When he used his cooker it tripped next doors electric. It turned out to be the two houses shared the same earth and the consumer unit in the neighbors house was over sensitive. It was fixed by replacing the consumer unit and seperating the earths from what I remember.

Could be similar ?
 
Rodneypooleg said:
He kind of said it was my problem because I'm causing it and it's my mower that's the problem and if I got a new one it would be ok.
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I'd be politely dismissing that as a solution to be honest. His house, his issue. Help him diagnosing it is a nice thing to do, but it isn't your problem even if it does turn out to be your mower.
 
MOOGLEYS said:
One of my mates had this issue with the cooker. When he used his cooker it tripped next doors electric. It turned out to be the two houses shared the same earth and the consumer unit in the neighbors house was over sensitive. It was fixed by replacing the consumer unit and seperating the earths from what I remember.

Could be similar ?
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i have heard similar problem but with electric shower. turned out both houses shared same earthing from the mains. fixed by local sparky by separating the earthing and it was fine since.
 
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