What "man jobs" have you done today?

I had ours done when we bought this bungalow 15 yrs ago - Plastic on top of asbestos and it still seems fine today - New gutters and down pipes and there is membrane under tiles overlapping gutter so I think it will see me out.
I do not hose it down from underneather but clean by hand.
We are happy with it and also had end tiles covered in plastic edges.
 
Losing the plot here. Still getting my ring main MCB tripping seemingly randomly. I've now removed the two sockets from the room that I added and just connected the ring back together with wagos, so confident there's no issue there.

Observations:
- seems to happen late at night or early in morning which coincides with hair dryer usage and charging of toothbrushes. Though it's not an immediate trip, there was a 15 min or so delay between hairdryer use and toothbrush charging before tripping. Could these be related?
- I unplugged everything else last night and it was fine until this morning. Then we used hairdryer and plugged toothbrush charger in and then tripped shortly after.
- Could it be a faulty outlet? I've checked a few of them and the wiring looks fine, though not the ones that either the hairdryer or toothbrushes plug into. Or it could be damage to the wiring somewhere else on then circuit but I'd hope this would be an immediate MCB trip? The delay doesn't make sense. Or a faulty appliance, either toothbrush charger or hairdryer.
- Will try hairdryer and toothbrushes on different circuit and see if I can replicate the behaviour.
- Failing that, time to call a sparkie! Any thoughts welcome please!
 
There must be a live to neutral short somewhere or potentially just a faulty MCB.

It should show up on some basic tests if you have a tester.

Have you tried swapping the MCB onto another circuit* and see if the fault follows it? Does the fault follow if you plug the device into another circuit?

*if you have another 32A ring available or stick a lower rated MCB on your potentially faulty circuit.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
There must be a live to neutral short somewhere or potentially just a faulty MCB.

It should show up on some basic tests if you have a tester.

Have you tried swapping the MCB onto another circuit* and see if the fault follows it? Does the fault follow if you plug the device into another circuit?

*if you have another 32A ring available or stick a lower rated MCB on your potentially faulty circuit.
Click to expand...

Don't feel confident swapping the MCB on the consumer unit.

Tripped last night when we were asleep. Toothbrush chargers unplugged. Will try and disconnect literally everything tonight and see if it trips. Least that will definitely confirm wiring issue.
 
Spent the day building 2 doubles + 1 50cm and a new 4 draw bed.
2.5m in length & 2.36 in height and fitted with casters to allow movement when decorating and when doing the electrics.
Not the best of shoots, but to add that these are dark grey, as is the bed with doors to match and the 50cm unit is being fitted with a mirror door.
O5bQSTN.jpg
 
Noob question ahoy. We had 2 spotlights installed in our box room. I assumed they used the commonly used GU bulbs but when trying to unscrew one that stopped working, it had two small screws holding the housing and a further 2 behind it. It's a mechanism I don't recognise. I guess the fitting has to be fully replaced? I checked in the loft and found one of the lights (the working one) under insulation wired to a box (was a little warm under there). Me moving the box stopped the working light, so something seems loose. Not entirely sure how the sparky got to the other one as it's under boards in the loft.

Do I replace the fitting from above? Is that box safe under the insulation?



 
doodah said:
Noob question ahoy. We had 2 spotlights installed in our box room. I assumed they used the commonly used GU bulbs but when trying to unscrew one that stopped working, it had two small screws holding the housing and a further 2 behind it. It's a mechanism I don't recognise. I guess the fitting has to be fully replaced? I checked in the loft and found one of the lights (the working one) under insulation wired to a box (was a little warm under there). Me moving the box stopped the working light, so something seems loose. Not entirely sure how the sparky got to the other one as it's under boards in the loft.

Do I replace the fitting from above? Is that box safe under the insulation?



Click to expand...
led bulbs. probably blown out. can you switch them over to see if the fault moves or stays. You will need to replace the whole unit. Is that 'box' thing a PSU /downconvertor ? or just a terminal block to hook on the wiring, hard to see. Waygo and similar shouldn't be floating they should be in an accessible mounted box.
 
Macky said:
Don't feel confident swapping the MCB on the consumer unit.

Tripped last night when we were asleep. Toothbrush chargers unplugged. Will try and disconnect literally everything tonight and see if it trips. Least that will definitely confirm wiring issue.
Click to expand...

We had a random issue a few months ago where a RCD (IIRC!) would trip, taking out a good chunk of the house (in fact might have been the entire house). Initially I could turn everything back on and things would be fine for a few days. Like you, I went through turning off lots of stuff. It escalated to the point where I had to leave a socket ring off to reset the RCD.

Eventually we traced it to an old / unused gate valve on the CH dripping a tiny amount of water into the socket for the CH pump.
 
whitecrook said:
led bulbs. probably blown out. can you switch them over to see if the fault moves or stays. You will need to replace the whole unit. Is that 'box' thing a PSU /downconvertor ? or just a terminal block to hook on the wiring, hard to see. Waygo and similar shouldn't be floating they should be in an accessible mounted box.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. I still need to figure out how to access the other light, assume he unscrewed and then re-screwed the board blocking access in the loft. Not sure about the box, think he's terminated the power/grey wires in there and there seems to be some simple dip like switches. I'll take a proper picture tonight/tomorrow. So remove it from under the insulation? I don't think there was much slack so would need to be fastened against a beam in the loft? Unless I untethered the grey wire currently fastened in a run along some beams in the loft.

I thought I was just unscrewing a bulb for this :p.
 
doodah said:
Thanks for the reply. I still need to figure out how to access the other light, assume he unscrewed and then re-screwed the board blocking access in the loft. Not sure about the box, think he's terminated the power/grey wires in there and there seems to be some simple dip like switches. I'll take a proper picture tonight/tomorrow. So remove it from under the insulation? I don't think there was much slack so would need to be fastened against a beam in the loft? Unless I untethered the grey wire currently fastened in a run along some beams in the loft.

I thought I was just unscrewing a bulb for this :p.
Click to expand...
it's spring loaded clip you can see them in your picture. you just pull the unit.
 
#Chri5# said:
We had a random issue a few months ago where a RCD (IIRC!) would trip, taking out a good chunk of the house (in fact might have been the entire house). Initially I could turn everything back on and things would be fine for a few days. Like you, I went through turning off lots of stuff. It escalated to the point where I had to leave a socket ring off to reset the RCD.

Eventually we traced it to an old / unused gate valve on the CH dripping a tiny amount of water into the socket for the CH pump.
Click to expand...

Hmm the central heating pump is entirely within the combi boiler which is fed of a separate circuit so shouldn't be related. We had everything unplugged last night and no trip. But. I'm not convinced that fixed anything, because we'd also had weeks without any trips recently?!

I really need to try just swapping the MCB onto the other 32A ring and see if the behaviour tracks across.
 
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aVdub said:
Spent the day building 2 doubles + 1 50cm and a new 4 draw bed.
2.5m in length & 2.36 in height and fitted with casters to allow movement when decorating and when doing the electrics.
Not the best of shoots, but to add that these are dark grey, as is the bed with doors to match and the 50cm unit is being fitted with a mirror door.
Click to expand...
Ikea? Are they any good if so. I am looking at getting a PAX for storage.
 
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