Any electricians on here? (1 Viewer)

[chiefdave]

If so any ideas what might be wrong here.

Was sat at home last night, lights flickered then everything went off for about 10 seconds. Came back on and then 5 minutes later went off again and stayed off. Thought it was a power cut but turned out to only be my house.

The weird thing is the lounge lights, the smoke alarms and one socket upstairs are working. Everything else is off. Phoned the electic distirbutor and they said there's no issues in the area.

Unplugged everything and reset the fusebox, flipped the fusebox switches on one at a time and nothing (except lounge lights, smoke detectors and one socket).

Its a rented house so they are supposed to be getting back to me this morning and arranging an electrician but just in case anyone had any ideas thought it was worth a post.

 

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[Nick]

So the fusebox is saying everything is on? Could be the actual fusebox / board.

 

[chiefdave]

So the fusebox is saying everything is on? Could be the actual fusebox / board.

As far as I can tell. All the switches were still set to on when I checked so nothing has tripped it out.

Its all fairly new (house is only about 3 years old), so you would hope it hasn't gone wrong already. At least I won't have to pay for it, just need to get them to actually send someone out!

 

[jimmyhillsfanclub]

I'm not a spark, but I'm an Engineer & have re-wired a house before. That is a weird one. maybe worth trying to establish which circuit breaker actually activates the bits you do have working.

In theory, you should have a separate CB for each ring main (mains sockets) & a separate CB for each lighting circuit. You should have a 2 x CB's for ring mains (1 up & 1 downstairs) + 2 for lights (up & down) plus a separate one for the oven/hob assuming its electric.

Lighting CB's are the lower rated ones (usually 6Amp) & the ring mains are usually 16,20 or 32A depending on configuration.

If your ring main CB activates your lights, or your lighting CB activates the socket, then you've got cowboy wiring.

If the main RCD keeps tripping, then you've got an earth fault.

My guess from your brief description is either a) cowboy wiring or b) mice.

 

[chiefdave]

That's way past anything I'm going to attempt!

The fusebox has a big red switch which turns the whole thing on or off. Then there's 2 lots of black switches. Each set has a switch which turns all of that set off.

They are all labelled but only 3 of them seem to be working. All the others are set to on but no power is coming through. Even if you test them one at a time its still only those three that work.

 

[cmoncity]

Im a spark it sounds like you may have a looses connection either in the board on the meter or on the incoming fuse.? try not to use any heavy load appliances untill its all been checked..it could be something else i.e mouse ate a cable somewhere in the circuit hard to tell without seeing it. Hope it gets sorted

 

[chiefdave]

Cheers chaps, hopefully it is just a loose connection or something that can be fixed quickly. Should be someone coming out late this afternoon.

 

[chiefdave]

Sure you're all waiting to find out the cause. Where the main feed comes into the fuse box it splits into two for the two parts of the fusebox (I'm guessing two circuits). On one part the screw had come loose, that had caused a arc which had burnt out connection.

He's patched it up temporarily for tonight and is putting a new RCB (I think) in tomorrow.

Looks like one of the labels is wrong. The way its labelled one side had way more load than the other so he thinks the upstairs sockets got swapped with the upstairs lights at some point to try and balance it up a bit but the labels weren't moved. That would make sense as it would mean everything that wasn't working was on the damaged side.

 

[jimmyhillsfanclub]

Sure you're all waiting to find out the cause. Where the main feed comes into the fuse box it splits into two for the two parts of the fusebox (I'm guessing two circuits). On one part the screw had come loose, that had caused a arc which had burnt out connection.

He's patched it up temporarily for tonight and is putting a new RCB (I think) in tomorrow.

Looks like one of the labels is wrong. The way its labelled one side had way more load than the other so he thinks the upstairs sockets got swapped with the upstairs lights at some point to try and balance it up a bit but the labels weren't moved. That would make sense as it would mean everything that wasn't working was on the damaged side.

Glad its sorted......sounds like a bit of a dogs dinner of an installation in the first place.......make sure you get a copy of the test certificate when its all fixed (Landlord/Agent liable for all costs)

 

[RegTheDonk]

Glad you got it sorted out Chief

A general question to cmoncity if I may - I've never had a problem with my electrics. House was built in the 30s and though the cabling must have been done at some point (before we moved in) as its grey, not the old style black rubber...however, the fusebox is one those old big plug in wire holder types.

Are these still generally safe? I know most houses have trip switches, circuit breakers etc, and you'd never get away with installing anything like this anymore, just wondered if I have some kind of legal obligation to get it updated. If there was ever a fire caused by a dodgy fuseboard or wiring, dare say the insurance would use that as an excuse not to cough up.

TIA