RCD trips every morning between 08.00 and 09.00

[marconi]

electrical wiring - cavi elettrici

electrical testing equipment - apparecchiature per prove elettriche

test di resistenza all'isolamento

250 Volts - 250 Volt

500 Volts - 500 Volt

test di rampa di interruttori differenziali

corrente di dispersione verso terra totale

incomers - cavi di alimentazione principale

earth electrode current - corrente dell'elettrodo di terra

tightness of connections - tenuta delle connessioni

pull test on ferrules - tirare il test sulle ferrule.

 

[marconi]

50m extension cable:

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[marconi]

I have asked an eminent electrician of the Electricians' Forum how much he reckoned these tests would cost and how long to do them. For a typical 3 bed house no more than £100 and a couple of hours at most with the right test equipment and competency in its use - this does not include searching for any faults, just the testing.

 

[pgrbff]

Many thanks for all your help. Much more than I would have expected. It has now been 3 days since the last time the RCD tripped, something has changed.

 

[marconi]

I don't want to overly alarm you but could you have a problem with rodents eating cables under the floor or in the loft or in outbuildings? Or ants getting into connections and electrical enclosures?

Have you had a period of wet weather followed by hot weather which has dried out everything?

Could you walk the length of the 2km line and check the conductors are in free space and not bothered by trees, etcetera. Or that no-one is pinching electricity by clamping on to the cables directly.



Please keep us posted.

 

[pgrbff]

I can see most of the lines from the house, and they’re insulated.
We have lots of ghiri, Roman doormice, in the roof space, they keep you awake at night running up and down or eating the roof insulation. 99% of the wiring is not accessible to rodents, can’t say the same for ants.
We had a much, much drier year two years ago. So dry that we had new cracks appear as the 100/200 year old building settled a bit. The buildings are stone with only mud between the stones, no mortar.

 

[pgrbff]

Hi - I know I’m late to the party, so apologies if this has already been covered
1. What type of earthing do you have?
2. Tell us about this solar pump thing you mentioned in the first post. Do you have solar panels? An invertor? Is it attached to your Consumer Unit? If so, I’d disconnect it all and see what happens tomorrow morning .

Earth is a copper plated steel rod approximately 1,5m deep
The solar pump circulates water from solar panels on the roof for indirect hot water. No photovoltaics, too expensive here.

 

[Wilko]

Earth is a copper plated steel rod approximately 1,5m deep
The solar pump circulates water from solar panels on the roof for indirect hot water. No photovoltaics, too expensive here.

Hi - just a simple thing, but perhaps have a close look at the rod and the cable linking back to your board. Check cable is continuous and the connections at each end are sound and corrosion free.

 

[HappyHippyDad]

Like Marconi says it would be best to get an electrician out to do all the required tests. However, if you intend to fault find yourself then i would slowly, over time eliminate all appliances one by one.

If the tripping is everyday between 8-9 then that is perfect as the tripping is consistent rather than random. You can just unplug/switch off one item and see if it still trips the following day. It would need to be a controlled experiment though. Just unplugging something and seeing if it fails to trip the following day would not be enough. I would then plug it back in and see if it then trips the following day. This would add to the degree of certainty.

Even if the above does not work it has still eliminated some possible causes and you can then focus elsewhere. i.e the supply, faulty RCD's etc etc.

Hopefully your tripping problem has gone away (as you have said), but I have had a few customers who cancel on me because it stops tripping. Only to get a phone call the next day apologising and asking me back as it has started again.

Also, It would be worth spending the money to get it properly checked even now, as if it has been tripping that often then something was clearly very wrong and may still be there even though it's not tripping now.

 

[pgrbff]

Still waiting for the electrician, his son and father are both in hospital and I am not that close to where he lives.
After a month of problems with the mainboard tripping virtually every day at more or less the same hour, it has now been over a week since the RCD tripped. The annexe board, however, has started tripping again, only three times in 8 days, all in the morning, but I'm not sure we are ever going to get to the bottom of this.

 

[static zap]

but I'm not sure we are ever going to get to the bottom of this.

--if you keep a calendar ,add weather ,temp ,rainy days ...
May have some clues.
(and clues -when to call again next year)
...If you move any equipment about ..
add dates if (just in case any patterns change)

a) Others hammering the fans/air-con
b) Water seeping in somewhere & drying out.
c) Overnight condensation-re distributing.
----There is a chance damage is being done -and will eventually become a Permanent thing---

 

[pgrbff]

I have kept a diary and unfortunately, over the last 3 /4 years it has been fairly random. We have periods where the RCD regularly trips, and then it stops for a while and the pattern changes.
Some trips are expected, we had storms the last few days and the RCD in the annexe switches off, and when it snows in winter.
The voltage varies all day and we have regular blackouts.

 

[marconi]

Would you consider spending money on a battery and inverter which would power your home and annexe? The mains supply would be used to charge the battery. When the supply is of the correct voltage the inverter could be set up to go into 'bypass mode' connecting the supply to the loads avoiding discharging the battery; otherwise when the input voltage is out of specification the inverter automatically switches to the battery with no loss of output voltage. You could also buy an inverter which would take an input from solar panels.

Here are some prices for different sized(kVA/kW) inverters:

12V solar panels charging kits for caravans, motorhomes, boats, yachts, marine

12V solar panel solar charging kits for motorhome caravan boat campervan yacht marine off-grid

www.photonicuniverse.com

You would also need some batteries - good ones which I can talk about if you are interested.

 

[pgrbff]

I have considered using solar but the incentives here aren't very good anymore.
I really need to formally complain to Enel again, my electrician keeps telling me to do so, but they have already replaced two/three km of lines to my home with what they say are the heaviest permissible. I'm not convinced that it is simply a case of being too far from the substation but basically, I would have to pay for monitoring and dealing with the bureaucracy here is nothing short of a nightmare.
I have to go away for a few days now and will have to ask my nearest neighbours, an elderly couple, to drive up at least once a day to check nothing has tripped. This is worse than it seems because the road is in a terrible state, missing tarmac in may places.

 

[pgrbff]

I

Would you consider spending money on a battery and inverter which would power your home and annexe? The mains supply would be used to charge the battery. When the supply is of the correct voltage the inverter could be set up to go into 'bypass mode' connecting the supply to the loads avoiding discharging the battery; otherwise when the input voltage is out of specification the inverter automatically switches to the battery with no loss of output voltage. You could also buy an inverter which would take an input from solar panels.

Here are some prices for different sized(kVA/kW) inverters:

12V solar panels charging kits for caravans, motorhomes, boats, yachts, marine

12V solar panel solar charging kits for motorhome caravan boat campervan yacht marine off-grid

www.photonicuniverse.com

You would also need some batteries - good ones which I can talk about if you are interested.

I would like to use at least some solar but the way it works in Italy, as I have understood it, is that a company looks at your usage, installs panels that should cover that usage for free, then you continue to pay your electricity company more or less what you were paying before to rent the panels.
I have friends that have bought their own panels, costing between €4500 and €20,000 and none of them have had any payback from their electricity companies. They even pay a monthly charge to rent the new solar electricity meter.
I have always thought that batteries would prove too expensive. I use lipos in my hobby, flying radio control helicopters, and apart from the cost they don’t seem to have that many charge cycles.
If I could incorporate a battery system that might actually save me some money over time I would certainly consider it.