RCCD Tripping at least once a day

[futuresparkie]

Hello all I am new to this forum. I have a customer who has an office in a flat that was originally built as a domestic accomodation. There exists a ccu which has an 80amp RCCD as it's main isolator and mcb's for the circuits. What's happening is that at least once a day, the RCCD will trip and and they say that this normally happens when they switch on the kettle although they also said that it happened the other day when they switched on their lights.
Any thoughts on resolving this issue would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mechelec]

Do you think it would be worth checking the kettle?

 

[Snapester]

mate i had exactly the same thing!! It drove me bananas! Solved very easily though by getting a Earth Leakage Clamp Meter, basically the RCCB in my case was floating around 24mA and then something would turn on and trip it, they would say its the kettle the fridge the light the dog barking! But basically in my case the underfloor heating was leaking 20mA must have been damaged somewhere along the line so could rip there floors up just had to re jig the breakers!
Seriously though clamp meter is so worth the money on these kind of faults!

 

[plugsandsparks]

mate i had exactly the same thing!! It drove me bananas! Solved very easily though by getting a Earth Leakage Clamp Meter, basically the RCCB in my case was floating around 24mA and then something would turn on and trip it, they would say its the kettle the fridge the light the dog barking! But basically in my case the underfloor heating was leaking 20mA must have been damaged somewhere along the line so could rip there floors up just had to re jig the breakers!
Seriously though clamp meter is so worth the money on these kind of faults!

Can you recommend me one as i recon i could hve saved myself at least two days work over the year messing around tracing tripping RCDs - thx

 

[Snapester]

Hi mate i got this one its £99 but its ok for the price alot of them are £300+
Dilog DL6507. Buy online or call

Check it out, it will save you alot of ball ache!

 

[futuresparkie]

Thanks for your reply.
What exactly do you mean by "re jig the breakers".
Thanks.

mate i had exactly the same thing!! It drove me bananas! Solved very easily though by getting a Earth Leakage Clamp Meter, basically the RCCB in my case was floating around 24mA and then something would turn on and trip it, they would say its the kettle the fridge the light the dog barking! But basically in my case the underfloor heating was leaking 20mA must have been damaged somewhere along the line so could rip there floors up just had to re jig the breakers!
Seriously though clamp meter is so worth the money on these kind of faults!

 

[ringer]

Thanks for your reply.
What exactly do you mean by "re jig the breakers".
Thanks.

On a split load board, with two RCDs, you can move circuits from one RCD to the other (physical constraints re cable lengths allowing) to balance out the 'normal leakage'. For example, if the underfloor heating, cooker and kitchen sockets were on the same RCD, then move one or two of them to the other RCD which perhaps is coping with less 'normal leakage'

(I'm sure there is a better phrase than 'normal leakage' but cannot think what it is)

 

[telectrix]

an even better way would be to supply the UFH from it's own RCBO. that's the beauty of hi-integrity CUs.

 

[plugsandsparks]

The last "RCD" case i did was basically a very large house with absolutely loads of electrical / electronic equipment, much of it would be leaking to earth, as part of its design. The house just had one RCD at 30mA, rather than change the CU, i managed to modify it slightly and get 4 RCBOs in there effectively giving the house 4 times the capacity for natural leakage. The owner just wanted it sorting so i perhaps over clubbed it a bit. Anyway been done for 4 months now and not a peep.