Major electrical fault

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Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
I knew the house I've been renting for the last 5.5 years was a typical DIY job: various things about it are odd and unusual. Unfortunately the electrical fittings appear to be one of these.

A few years ago, I had to get my rental agent to get an electrician to fix a power point in the laundry, because I had a front-loader washing machine and front-loader spin-dryer plugged into it, and they were frequently stopping, and had to be restarted by me re-inserting the power cables into the power point. Once it was fixed (the electrician replaced the single power point with a double, which now works fine), I thought I'd seen the last of these problems.

Last night, however, while I was eating dinner and watching a DVD, the TV, DVD player, sofa-side lamp, and even my desktop PC all turned off, accompanied by a loud POP, and I was left sitting there in the dark thinking a general power failure had occurred. But then I noticed a few things (e.g. one of my 2 PC display monitors) showing standby lights, and realised that only some of the power points had failed.
I have a combined kitchen / living room area (as I said, a DIY job), which has 5 double power points and 3 single power points: ALL the double power points had failed. I tested them all, and get nothing from them now.

I managed to work around it by running an extension cable from the fridge / freezer (which was connected to one of the failed double power points) to one of the working single power points, and similarly for the TV / etc. I rearranged the desktop PC cables to use 1 of its 2 power boards which still worked, and it booted up properly.

One of my power boards got fried, so this morning while shopping I bought 2 more, plus another extension cable. I also emailed my rental agent with the details of the problem, and will phone him tomorrow to follow-up.

Does anyone have any idea how complex these things are to fix? It seems that the 5 double power points must have been all connected, so they all failed together. Is this a major electrical maintenance job, requiring lots of time and money?

Regards,

--- Victor ( "I'm a software geek, not a hardware geek, dammit!" )
 
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Shut Up Legs

Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
Problem solved. :rolleyes: I told you I knew stuff-all about hardware (and electrics). I checked the outside power box, and found that one of the circuit breakers had tripped to the OFF position. I turned it back on, and the 5 double power points are now working again. I think one of the devices plugged into them somehow caused an overload. Oh well: I live and learn.
 

Levo-Lon

Guru
You have ring mains on electric sockets.. Sounds like you have 2 in your house.
One tripped...it could be a simple over load so it tripped...or a earth fault..i.e. a loose wire in a socket etc.
Have any of your plug in appliances failed ? As they can short and cause a circuit to fail.
It's worth getting the the sockets tested for peace of mind and fire is less likely with good wiring connections.
 
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Shut Up Legs

Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
You have ring mains on electric sockets.. Sounds like you have 2 in your house.
One tripped...it could be a simple over load so it tripped...or a earth fault..i.e. a loose wire in a socket etc.
It's worth getting the the sockets tested for peace of mind and fire is less likely with good wiring connections.
Is that typically an expensive job? I've never had sockets tested before.
 
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Shut Up Legs

Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
No But it's a legal requirement when renting a property...in the UK..landlords etc.
It Should be up to them to sort for insurance..
OK, perhaps I'll suggest it to my rental agent, particularly given what I said about one of the other sockets failing a few years back.
 
My house has 2 ring mains for sockets and these are split upstairs/downstairs. Sounds like your landlord had different ideas!
 

DanZac

Senior Member
Location
Basingstoke
It might be worth considering what you have actualy got plugged in as it sounds like you might be overloading your sockets which is probably the cause of the problem in the first place.
You made mention of having 2 large appliances plugged into a single socket, this is certainly not good practice. Each socket is only really designed for a single load and high power consumption items on extension leads with multiple sockets should deffinatly be avoided.
 

gbb

Legendary Member
Location
Peterborough
It might be worth considering what you have actualy got plugged in as it sounds like you might be overloading your sockets which is probably the cause of the problem in the first place.
You made mention of having 2 large appliances plugged into a single socket, this is certainly not good practice. Each socket is only really designed for a single load and high power consumption items on extension leads with multiple sockets should deffinatly be avoided.
The above is common sense, check the actual appliances, how many amps are they rated at. There should be a plate with the ratings on the appliance) If multiple appliances on one socket are exceeding the sockets rating (13 amp) then there could be your problem.
You could have a faulty appliance. Normally I'd plug one in at a time and see if anything trips. I don't think this sounds like your problem as everything is working now...I assume.
It could be a faulty breaker (trip).. they start to struggle after multiple trips.

Non of the above is based on expertise, hopefully just common sense.
 
The above is common sense, check the actual appliances, how many amps are they rated at. There should be a plate with the ratings on the appliance) If multiple appliances on one socket are exceeding the sockets rating (13 amp) then there could be your problem.
You could have a faulty appliance. Normally I'd plug one in at a time and see if anything trips. I don't think this sounds like your problem as everything is working now...I assume.
It could be a faulty breaker (trip).. they start to struggle after multiple trips.

Non of the above is based on expertise, hopefully just common sense.
Agreed

A washing machine and tumble dryer if they are both heating at the same time could potentially draw about 5kW which would be about 20A - well in excess of what a single socket is capable of safely delivering
 

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
The above is common sense, check the actual appliances, how many amps are they rated at. There should be a plate with the ratings on the appliance) If multiple appliances on one socket are exceeding the sockets rating (13 amp) then there could be your problem.
You could have a faulty appliance. Normally I'd plug one in at a time and see if anything trips. I don't think this sounds like your problem as everything is working now...I assume.
It could be a faulty breaker (trip).. they start to struggle after multiple trips.

Non of the above is based on expertise, hopefully just common sense.
Rule of thumb: think heat. Electrical appliances draw 100w, give or take; ones that involve heat draw ten times that, plus. You can have pretty much any number of lights, laptops and clocks running off a single 13 amp socket, so long as the wiring's sound, but the moment you get something big involving heat, like a washing machine, that's a socket's worth.
 
Rule of thumb: think heat. Electrical appliances draw 100w, give or take; ones that involve heat draw ten times that, plus. You can have pretty much any number of lights, laptops and clocks running off a single 13 amp socket, so long as the wiring's sound, but the moment you get something big involving heat, like a washing machine, that's a socket's worth.
Basically any kitchen appliance
 
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