Electrical Question - Earth trip after power cut
Discussion
Question for anyone who knows more than me about house electrics.
Yesterday we had a power cut, very brief, caused by a lightning strike. When I got in from work, although the power was back on, my circuit breaker had broke causing everything to trip.
The earth leakage had popped and wouldn’t reset until I had turned everything off. Once back on it’s been fine.
My question is, why did the earth leakage go? It’s relatively new and is sensitive, which is a good thing; just I’d rather a power cut didn’t do it. Fridge off etc, not ideal if I was away.
My thoughts were, was my house struck? No sign of damage so I’m doubtful on that one.
Possibly a poor earth? Old flat, earthed through an earth spike, water pipe and gas main.
Cheers,
Cramman.
Yesterday we had a power cut, very brief, caused by a lightning strike. When I got in from work, although the power was back on, my circuit breaker had broke causing everything to trip.
The earth leakage had popped and wouldn’t reset until I had turned everything off. Once back on it’s been fine.
My question is, why did the earth leakage go? It’s relatively new and is sensitive, which is a good thing; just I’d rather a power cut didn’t do it. Fridge off etc, not ideal if I was away.
My thoughts were, was my house struck? No sign of damage so I’m doubtful on that one.
Possibly a poor earth? Old flat, earthed through an earth spike, water pipe and gas main.
Cheers,
Cramman.
x type said:
we get many calls in work for off supply after lightning
9/10 are trip switches ,something to do with the eart electrode outside picking up stray vlotage from the lightning
This could be the case, the strike which actually caused the power cur was within a mile of the house.9/10 are trip switches ,something to do with the eart electrode outside picking up stray vlotage from the lightning
Cheers, think I'll check my earths anyway, won't do any harm.
cazzer said:
Any ideas why my earth leakage breaker goes repeatedly for about a week...then is fine for months....then has another week of going off evey 15 minutes?/quote]
I'd suggest you have a problem that is worth checking out. I had a similar problem and found out one of my earth, in a socket, was loose. It doesn't take allot to trip these boards, you can get a thing for checking sockets, no idea how much tho, I just borrow one from the old man. May be worth having a wander around with one of those.
I'd suggest you have a problem that is worth checking out. I had a similar problem and found out one of my earth, in a socket, was loose. It doesn't take allot to trip these boards, you can get a thing for checking sockets, no idea how much tho, I just borrow one from the old man. May be worth having a wander around with one of those.
cazzer said:
Any ideas why my earth leakage breaker goes repeatedly for about a week...then is fine for months....then has another week of going off evey 15 minutes?
this type of problem is a nightmare to find ,it could be anything in the house starting to play up only chance you may have is when it's tripping constantly unplug (not just switch off) appliances 1 by 1 until maybe it stops
We've had a few problems recently with the multi socket adapters for computers with surge protection breaking down .
We've also had 1 customer whose trip had been going off randomly for almost 20 years !!!!!
She'd had numerous people to check her system with no problem found we changed her supply cables and even chnged the transformer feeding her , still the trip went off whenever it wanted to
she was threatning legal action and going to the press etc. she reckoned the mains were causing it somehow
Happened to be talking to her about it one day and she said " it's been happening ever since I bought the freezer for the garage 20 yrs ago "
Told her to ditch it for a few weeks and let me know what happens
Never heard from her for almost a year until we did a job next door ,asked about the tripping
She sheepishly replied ,no problems since getting rid of that freezer
x type said:
cazzer said:
Any ideas why my earth leakage breaker goes repeatedly for about a week...then is fine for months....then has another week of going off evey 15 minutes?
this type of problem is a nightmare to find ,it could be anything in the house starting to play up only chance you may have is when it's tripping constantly unplug (not just switch off) appliances 1 by 1 until maybe it stops
We've had a few problems recently with the multi socket adapters for computers with surge protection breaking down .
We've also had 1 customer whose trip had been going off randomly for almost 20 years !!!!!
She'd had numerous people to check her system with no problem found we changed her supply cables and even chnged the transformer feeding her , still the trip went off whenever it wanted to
she was threatning legal action and going to the press etc. she reckoned the mains were causing it somehow
Happened to be talking to her about it one day and she said " it's been happening ever since I bought the freezer for the garage 20 yrs ago "
Told her to ditch it for a few weeks and let me know what happens
Never heard from her for almost a year until we did a job next door ,asked about the tripping
She sheepishly replied ,no problems since getting rid of that freezer
Everytime we think we've worked out what device/plug socket/lightswitch it is and stop using it, it happens again a few weeks later.
It never seems to be what we thought last time.
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