The dangers of condensation!

[Darkwood]

Got a callout from a mate saying his light are out and all circuits are on, also he thinks something smells funny so given the latter info I said it best I pop over and check it out, now considering I went to look at the lighting issue, what I found in the board was an example of the issues of condensation running though the breakers over the years.
The burnt out mcb was a 40amp shower supply but the heat burnt through the adjacent main switch into the live pole and a 32amp mcb on the other side, all effected breakers were rendered useless welded in the on position and taking power direct through the mainswitch regardless of its position.
All uneffected mcb's of this heat damage were stuck physically in the on position as the mechanics has siezed with the damp although the lighting did operate internally but couldn't reset.
I raided by box of spares and replaces the heat damaged devices and the lighting, disconnected temp' other circuits ready for a board change.
The cellar has a extract fan design to remove the damp air but it was never switched on.
I'll be passing this job on to a mate who can sign off the new board as I don't do domestic and I'm too busy for a guv job (which I never do )

 

[Leesparkykent]

To make it worse its Proteus rubbish.

 

[mattg4321]

I thought that was normal for Proteus?!

 

[123]

Thread should be re-titled the dangers of Proteus lol

 

[Darkwood]

To be fair the issue was not the brand nor the tightness of connections that usually are a factor, it was good old H2O and I've seen this happen to the best of brands under the same conditions.. the damp penetrates the mcb, corrodes the contact points creating high resistance, it tends to show on high current circuits before low current ones if effecting multiple devices and that was exactly what happened here.
the hardest part of doing a temp' repair is getting the gear out when it rusted solid on terminations like the busbar, took alot of persuation with a ratchet set and a tapping hammer to shock them loose without reeming the heads out.
You can see in the pic that the terminals are corroded too.

 

[DPG]

Wow, that's a good example - hard to believe it can do so much damage eh. Daz