Electrics tripping

[Wellington]

Not always, but often enough to be a pain. They tripped my cousin’s house a few times (but she has crazy Italian electrics) and our current site is tripping all the time at the post. My cousins caravan did not trip them (we were all staying in the house at the time, so nothing being used at all)

I do have a lot of electric gadgetry, but I don’t think that’s it. We can’t run anything here at all. Not even the spare coldbox (which is 12v, but runs through a 240 adapter, as there isn’t a 12v outlet in the garage).

I can’t run the microwave, aircon or cold box at all, even if I turn the fridge to gas and everything off, and I’ve always been able to run them one at a time, wherever we’ve been. I could at the last site. There are other people running air con here and my electric bill was suspiciously high over the winter, when I left the MH plugged in, but completely empty, ready for sale.

Conclusion: something I can’t see and don’t know about is using power. Any quick and dirty suggestions about how to find stop it? It’s not insurmountable, and there are limits to what I can do, but it REALLY hot here, and I’d love the aircon at night, and I’m fed up of washing pots and miss my microwave. And my coffee!

 

[jockaneezer]

Have you tried borrowing someone else's hook up lead to see if the fault lies with that ? Simplest things first

 

[9526]

Is your water boiler on the electric setting?

 

[Stanbrook]

You could test the lead using different appliances if you had one of these, Good luck

 

[TheBig1]

the battery charger is likely running all the time and if the water heater has hidden settings like the alde system, that could be taking power too

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Wellington]

Ah. The (Sargent) battery charger is very hot, and has a red light, which it says is ‘boost charge’. We have been hooked up for three days, and not doing anything much so perhaps that’s it. Of course, it’s wired in and has no off switch, so I can’t check the wretched thing.

No clue about the water heater. It comes on and off randomly, but only on gas as far as I can tell. I tried reading the manual, but am none the wiser! I think it’s tamed for the moment, and i don’t think it uses electric.

 

[Wellington]

Hmm. We are now on a new site, and all is fine. Battery charger is ambient temp, cold box and fridge on at the same time as air con or microwave. If the coffee machine works in the morning, I’ll be as sunny as the riviera (which is cloudy, as it happens, but the sentiment remains!) I’ve even used the halogen oven to cook dinner, which must be a major draw. Odd that it’s blown a few fuses though, not just a one off. I’ll keep an eye on it. Thanks for all the input (I’m always grateful, especially for electrical bits)

 

[autorouter]

With modern electrics there are two distinct reasons why the supply trips. The obvious one is too much power consumption, or too many amps to be precise. That's called overcurrent.

The other reason for tripping is slight leakage to earth from a live or neutral wire. A very small leakage, usually 30mA, is all it takes. Often water getting into a plug/socket, especially in the mains inlet cable, is enough to cause the leakage. If it dries up the problem can disappear, making it hard to fix.

How do you tell the difference between an overcurrent and a leakage fault? Look carefully to see exactly which circuit has tripped.

In the mains distribution box, there are RCDs and MCBs. An RCD is larger, and has a test button, and will trip due to earth leakage. An MCB is smaller, with no test button, and will trip due to overcurrent. So looking at exactly what has tripped will tell you if it's a leakage fault or an overcurrent fault.

Unfortunately there's another thing called an RCBO, that has a test button, but will trip for leakage or overcurrent faults, or both. But they are not very common, especially in house wiring. It's easy to tell from a photo,

 

[Wellington]

That’s a very clear explanation, thank you.
It was the little switch on the post that went. When I first plugged in, it tripped all of them that were connected (I tried in several sockets, there were three spare), but yesterday when I was messing about with it, it was just mine the needed switching back on. I didn’t take a photo, and we have moved on now. Should have done really.

The battery charger is still hot and on boost (it wasn’t last night) so something is amiss somewhere, But everything works, at least. I suspect I have a fault somewhere, but it’s only showing up sometimes when there is a weak supply or other small fault in the supply. We’re heading for home tomorrow via my dad’s place, so I’ll get it looked at as soon as we can then. I’m just happy to be cool at night and have nice coffee again. (Also, fewer pots to wash!)

 

[autorouter]

In a house, and in hookup posts with multiple outlets, it is likely to have just one RCD (leakage protection) linked to many MCBs (overcurrent). So a leakage fault will trip everything. Modern house wiring has two RCDs, with the MCBs split evenly between them, so a single fault doesn't switch absolutely everything off.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Richard n Ann]

Is your leisure battery getting warm?

 

[Speve]

I would be concerned that your charger is on boost all the time? I would be checking to make sure there is not a fault with it.

 

[Richard n Ann]

If the battery has a shorted cell it will be down to 10v and the charger will be trying to boost charge it to no avail.
When ours did that the battery got hot.

 

[pappajohn]

Your charger may be hardwired but it will still have protection via an MCB in the consumer unit. Probably part of the 3 pin socket circuit so begin by flicking that breaker off and check the charger.
It may also have its own inbuilt on/off switch.

 

[Wagoneer]

I guess your mains charger is a CBE CB-516 (standard Carthago kit). Mine has a red on/off button. When pressed to the ON position the red button illuminates. I don't have a "booster button". Are you perhaps confusing the function of the red on/off button with what you call a "booster button" ?

The CBE charger has a built-in thermal cut-out device to prevent over-heating and a fan to keep things cool.

As previously mentioned...worth checking your leisure batteries to make sure they are not hot.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Wellington]

Your charger may be hardwired but it will still have protection via an MCB in the consumer unit. Probably part of the 3 pin socket circuit so begin by flicking that breaker off and check the charger.
It may also have its own inbuilt on/off switch.

Can’t find a switch on it, and when I flipped the rcd’s all the plugs go off as well, so I couldn’t take it out the equation to test the theory. The batteries aren’t getting warm, I don’t think (they’re bolted in under the floor, so I can only put my hand on the top but they feel ok)

I think the battery charger does have a fault, but I’m at a loss as to what to do about it. I’d turn it off at night if I could. I did unplug something from it that made the light go green, but without knowing what it is, it seemed unwise to mess with it.

it looks like this. It says that a red light (on the bottom as pictured) means boost charge and green means float. It’s on boost, except for when we first plugged in to the new site after a short drive yesterday. I unplugged the black plug on the right, and the light went green.

 

[WillH]

I suspect you may have a dodgy battery.

 

[Wagoneer]

Ah, see you have a Sargent battery charger, missed that fact on your post #6.

As I mentioned, the standard Carthago battery charger is a CBE type rated at 16amps. The only reason a previous owner may have installed a different battery charger is:
A) the CBE one failed
or B) the owner wished to charge a larger bank of leisure batteries, say more than 160Ah.

If you have a smaller battery bank of less than 160Ah, then A) would probably apply.

Which begs the question.....what is the maximum current rating of the Sargent charger. The Sargent charger may be less than the CBE charger it replaced.