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Weird thing happening with the upstairs lights. Nothing has been changed, no lamps have failed but a few times just recently, the MCB has tripped. What makes this odd is that no lights were on when it tripped.
My understanding is they MCBs trip for overload (very unlikely with nothing switched on) or shorts. Is it a safe bet then that there's a live and neutral somewhere making contact? But why the intermittent nature? It's the upstrais lighting circuit and there's no evidence of mice/squirels that I can see.
Any thoughts from the hive?
Poltergoost.
Sorry, my bad. Any helpful thoughts? 😉
I'm not a domestic electrics expert by any means but in a lot of the theatres/ venues I work in, I come accross trips that go for no obvious reason. Often it is purely a question of the trip is old and it no longer holds itself properly, sometimes it holds, sometimes it flicks off. Plastic etc inside going brittle can do it. I'd try swapping it out and if it still trips you know you've got a bigger problem.
If however its reasonably new, then I have no idea so please disregard everything above!!!!!
Can't hurt to swap the two MCBs for the two lighting circuits and see if one circuit still trips. Which one it is should be telling.
Consumer unit is only a couple of years old though.
Damp, broken or worn lampholder, connection at board good?
MCBs can **** themselves. What make is it.
Could be poorly connected joint boxes and light fittings. Looks like a long and laborious job to find though if there's no pattern.
Or it could be what I had on a ring main - the previous owner built an ensuite in one of the rooms, but didn't re run the cable - instead used the existing metal joint boxes and spliced on to complete the run.
Then he built a standoff partiton over them (two in total), and tiled over that.
It appeared that condensation inside the joint boxes was causing an occasional fault, and it got progressively worse...
Luckily it just so happens my dad is a sparky so it only took an afternoons swearing to track down and re route rather than a hefty bill.
The final clue was a photo of the 'before' state in a hefty folder of household details left by them.
Sorry, my bad. Any helpful thoughts?
Dont speak American?
Try swapping over to another 6A-10A MCb and if this trips then get someone over to do an insulation resistance test on the circuit. Also as oldgit said lamp holders have a habbit of perrishing over the years.
I'll have to have a look at what make it is. There are only 8 lights on the circuit. All the cabling is in the loft. The only time it comes near any water is when it passes under the shower feed. No sign of that leaking and under that pipe is just a run of cable, no joints or splits. Lets hope it's a nice easy to find lose connect in a pendant somewhere.
Step away people I know this one................
Oh, yeah ok probably a knackered MCB as said above. *Quickest way to check would be to put your live for the upstairs lighting in the downstairs lighting MCB and our neutral with the downstairs neutral. I'm putting money on it being wylex, not much mind.
*for the lawyers; obviously you should be competent and supervised by a qualified electrician, making sure the power is off 😀
Step away people I know this one................
Oh, yeah ok probably a knackered MCB as said above. *Quickest way to check would be to put your live for the upstairs lighting in the downstairs lighting MCB and our neutral with the downstairs neutral. I'm putting money on it being wylex, not much mind.
Err..in other words just change the breaker!!the neutrals are all in the same common block.
check obvious connection first then seek a test on the circuit affected if no joy.
I'm pretty sure it came from scewfix so wylex would be a good guess.
It's reassuring to know I've not missed anything obvious and people are drawing the same conclusions as me. I just really really home it's not a bit of cable compromised somewhere. I really don't rancy rolling around in insulation looking for it.
do you have any low voltage lighting/transformers on the circuit
No, no transformers (robots in disguise). Most a energy s aving bulbs and it's tripping with nothing on!
Is it still tripping when you've changed MCBs?
@ donks, A two year old board will most likely be a 17th edition board and so the assumption I made was that the installer would have put the circuits on different sides of the board.
16th edition as far as I'm aware and both lighting circuits are on the same side of the board (non rcd). Both Wylex mcb06.
Can't swap them over tonight as the wife is studying and doesn't want me to know the power off at the moment. The other problem is it can go months without tripping so it could take a while to find out.
Who made decent mcbs that I could swap it out with? For the price of an mbc, it has to be worth a punt.