General > General Technical Chat
Issues with circuit breaker/RCD randomly tripping
TimFox:
Since you are now in winter, I would suspect a funny connection or short that is temperature dependent, if the fault always occurs during darkness. Possibly a tight wire that shrinks, or something that moves and is not there when the electrician does his insulation test during daylight. (Similar to why low-battery-alarms in smoke detectors always go off at 3 AM when the indoor temperature is lowest.)
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: themadhippy on August 11, 2021, 11:36:27 am ---Is there a time clock on the heating system
--- End quote ---
No there isn't. It's an on-demand heater. It stores no water and only lights when you turn on a hot tap.
--- Quote from: andy3055 on August 11, 2021, 07:48:35 pm ---I just remembered this. You could be having a loose neutral in one of the sockets on that circuit. It could even be a loose live wire. But mostly I have seen a loose neutral doing that.
--- End quote ---
Thanks. He did say it's likely going to be a neutral to ground fault, but as always, the fault is never there when they test it. I'm going to keep a log over the next few days to see if there is any common element here.
--- Quote from: MrMobodies on August 11, 2021, 08:10:42 pm ---I once had a rusty pump that started to leak and it would trip the whole fuse box if the rcd for that circuit was switched back on.
It was intermittent at first and everything would come back on when resetting the main RCD. Then it would just reset until I switched all the other switches off and I traced it to the boiler switch and found the pump was slowly dripping.
--- End quote ---
I do have a water pump but I don't use it, plus it's on its own circuit. Physically disconnecting it made no difference last night either.
lwatts666:
My parents has a similar problem.
Finally found a termite nest behind a power outlet, and a pile of fried termites in the wall cavity. Called the exterminator and then replaced the power point.
At least it identified the termite problem before they did any significant damage.
Never figured out why it always tripped at night.
james_s:
I don't know a lot about termites but I would guess they are dormant during some part of the day, either based on sunlight or temperature.
I've heard of condensate leaks from air conditioners causing GFCI tripping, it can seem pretty random if it only happens when the AC has been running for a while.
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: james_s on August 12, 2021, 02:43:33 am ---I've heard of condensate leaks from air conditioners causing GFCI tripping, it can seem pretty random if it only happens when the AC has been running for a while.
--- End quote ---
Yeh I thought about that, since it's a ducted system, I got up in the roof and checked. No signs of any water or leaks anywhere. Even if the pipe had been leaking, there are no affected power cables anywhere near it anyway.
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