any electricians - rcd triping problem

[205man]

yesterday morning my gfirend was doing some ironing and the electric tripped out, the lights were still on as we have a spilt circuit

i check fuse board and the rcd had tripped knocking out alll the sockets in the house, so i reset it and switch iron back on and straight away it trips.

so today she went out and got another iron plugged it in and and bang tripped out again, so we borrow he dads as we know that work , but yet again bang it trips.

anyone have an idea as to why all of sudden the rcd trips when the iron is turned on? i switched on other things in house to try but its fine, and only does it when an iron is plugged in

 

[SteveTDCi]

have you checked the socket ? and are you sure there isn't another fault ?btw i'm not an electrician

 

[205man]

tried all the irons in different sockets with same results


cant see why all of a sudden we have another fault, we not had any problems before, and she had been using the iron for about 3/4 and hour, before the thing tripped, and its fine until you plug an iron in.

i even bought in my big bench saw which i know draws loads and that was fine

 

[rosscotdi]

ah,
Difficult one to try and fault find with out being there.
Are you using a extension lead before the iron??
If not then its probably a over sensitive rcd, which can only be checked using a Proper RCD or multifunction tester (kinda expensive machines)

What to do next?
Does a kettle trip the rcd when in those skts??

After all this the next thing is probably Swap the rcd in the Dis board, to eliminate that from the problem.

Do you have a cooker switch with a skt on it, try your irons in there cause they usually dont get connected to the RCD side of the board.

Oh should have said i am a spark, and happy to help!!

 

[fingermouse]

Nightmare to find sometimes, I installed a new split load board to my house but the downstairs won`t keep the RCD in.

In your case its probally the rcd as mentioned, irons and cookers are bad on rcd circuits as they are basically a short across the circuit

 

[AndyMac]

Funnily enough I had this issue last week with the low voltage lights in my workshop. On doing a bit of internet research there are all sorts of things can trip an RCD without there necessarily being a wiring fault. As already mentioned above the most common cause does seem to be an overly sensitive RCD, but if it's not that then it does appear to be a real ****** to sort out as transformers used on a lot of appliances and low voltage lighting can filter noise to earth causing a build up of leakage current. Could be the iron just puts it over the top for the RCD. Is it a 30mA RCD?

 

[treblesykes]

Id say the old iron shorted and took the rcd out with it, a new rcd should cure it.

 

[Z82]

95% sure it will be the RCD. RCD faults can be a bitch to trace some times but in your case its been working fine and you have proved its not the RCD, the socket and the circuit so for whatever reason, it sounds like your RCD has failed and you need a new one. Its a fairly simple job to do but RCD's arn't very cheap, expect to pay anything from £30 to £70 + VAT for just the RCD dependant on make & model.

 

[treblesykes]

i even bought in my big bench saw which i know draws loads and that was fine

But did you put any load on the saw? , other than the starting surge.

 

[AxE]

ah,
Difficult one to try and fault find with out being there.
Are you using a extension lead before the iron??
If not then its probably a over sensitive rcd, which can only be checked using a Proper RCD or multifunction tester (kinda expensive machines)

What to do next?
Does a kettle trip the rcd when in those skts??

After all this the next thing is probably Swap the rcd in the Dis board, to eliminate that from the problem.

Do you have a cooker switch with a skt on it, try your irons in there cause they usually dont get connected to the RCD side of the board.

Oh should have said i am a spark, and happy to help!!

If the Cooker switch has a socket on it it should be connected to the RCD side of the board.