tripping problems

[8716]

iv recently gone to a job that has had electrical work done and alot of general work done to the house they had problems with the up stairs sockets (unknown what was going on) i was told sockets kept tripping on rcd so i tested for Neutral to earth fault found one traced it back to a socket took the socket front off fault dissapeared? :? no fault in the socket itself either

put socket front back on went to power up and found neutral was out of the board as was the phase so refitted both conductors turned it on and tripped again so i went to look for the fault and managed to get it down to the two supply legs of the up stairs ring. my original thoughts were that the two cable run together somewhere and someone has stuck a screw threw them. but when the neutral is disconnected from the board there is no fault showing up at either the socket or the board end.


sorry its a bit long winded


cheers

[Kaizer]

Had a similar problem with a shower supply cable.

Suggest that problem could be caused by insulation damage within cable feeding the socket plate that you removed. In my case, the shower feed cable insulation appeared to be ok but at a point where the cable had been bent through a sharp angle to feed into the back of the shower unit. the inner insulation of the live conductor had split and there was intermittent electrical tracking between the live and earth conductors.

With your problem, I suggest that you look very closely and feel for possibility of hidden cable damage within the back box of the socket, particularly if the cable entering the box still has outside insulation over the conductors.

Good luck.