RCD Tripping!!!!!!!!

[bluesaint3378]

Hi

Hope someone can help me with this problem that I am having at the moment.

Sunday morning i woke up to find that all the sockets, combi-boiler and intruder alarm were not working, so i went to my consumer board and noticed my RCD had tripped, I reset it and everything came back on ok, about 4 hours later it tripped again, so I reset again, after a few hours again it tripped.

I went to every socket in the house and took out every appliance and switching all the sockets off. I tested each socket with power on but it didn't trip. I went to work and my partner told me that the power tripped within minutes of a reset now.

When I got home I checked all the MCB's and I left on one MCB for twenty minutes until I found the culprit which was the downstairs socket ring main.

I opened all the sockets and checked the connections which were sound, there was no damage inside any of the sockets.

I decided to swap the 32A MCB's a round to check them but it still tripped the RCD.

So i have moved the MCB to the other buzz bar thats not RCD protected (I know against the Regs) and the power hasn't gone off since, i have reduced the load to the circuit by only leaving essential appliances on

Could someone let me know if they have experianced this problem before and if they know off any solution, is it a faulty MCB or a faulty RCD.

Just to note there was been no changes to any of the circuits before this problem happened it just tripped overnight and has never been the same since.

[thelittletinker]

maybe you need to take the ring out and test the cable it sounds as if it has an earth leakage and you need to ask someone with a tester, do an insullation test on it you may find it is nothing much, but it can be a breakdown in the cable. the MCB is not the problem, but soon as the leakage of volts get over 30mA then it will trip it can be the appliance's 1 may be leaking 10mA and the washers 25mA and pop. I hope this helps. get some one to test it, please

[bluecallum]

You will probaly find it is the start up of a motor which is causing it,eg fridge.

[ringworm29]

hi cock.
you said that when you changed ithe feed over to the main switch side it did not trip.

just for my peace of mind, check that the neutrals on the downsrairs sockets are not conected to the main switch side.

and just check that when you change the feed back to the rcd that the ring has its neutrals in the rcd side .
in other words
lives main switch side ,,nuetrals main switch neutral bar.
lives rcd side ,, neutrals corresponing neutral bar.
hope it helps