Kettle has blown a fuse - why ?

[gentlegreen]

I'm moderately competent electrically.
My brother wires 3 phase pumping stations, but annoyingly he isn't qualified to sign off his own domestic wiring these days so I will have to hire someone to get it signed off.
He's going to help me put the front bedroom floor back in and my nephew is training to be a plasterer ...

 

[High Voltage]

Baby steps mate, baby steps - get one room looking nice and neutral and then move onto the next - you'll be amazed as how quickly this can have a positive effect on how you feel - I know, it did with me

Couple of rooms a year and you'll have half the house done in next to no time

 

[Spymaster]

Last week it tripped the kitchen breaker ... today it also blew the 13 amp fuse in the plug - but why ?

Because the current being drawn from the socket exceeded the amount designed for safe transfer by the fuse. This is a safety feature which protects the wiring and appliances connected to the circuit.

 

[gentlegreen]

What I mean is the first time it tripped the 32 amp trip but not the 13 amp fuse ...

 

[High Voltage]

Because the trip will go in a heart beat - a 13 amp fuse with need a little bit longer to burn through

Our consumer unit will trip when a light bulb blows

{edit} but it sounds like the 2nd time it went - there might have been a dead short giving the fuse time to blow as well

 

[redchris]

Apologies for jumping in your thread gentlegreen but seeing as this is primarily about electrical stuff, can anyone tell me why my kitchen spotlight bulbs blow frequently? There are three in a central cluster and they can last anywhere between 1 week and a few months. Being the skinflint that I am I started out with cheap bulbs but then I got to thinking that it might be a bulb quality problem I bought some more expensive ones but this made no difference. it's costing me a small fortune. In fact I'm so annoyed with the situation that I'm down to one bulb at present and cooking in the gloom as I don't want to waste anymore money.

 

[gentlegreen]

Probably time to think about at least trying LEDs ?
(even though the market is plagued with cheap ripoffs)
My understanding is that the mains voltage ones blow more quickly than the 12 volt ones.

Is it possible you are touching the lamps with bare greasy fingers when inserting them ?

A common issue is enclosed lamp fittings preventing heat being efficiently dissipated.

 

[existentialist]

Apologies for jumping in your thread gentlegreen but seeing as this is primarily about electrical stuff, can anyone tell me why my kitchen spotlight bulbs blow frequently? There are three in a central cluster and they can last anywhere between 1 week and a few months. Being the skinflint that I am I started out with cheap bulbs but then I got to thinking that it might be a bulb quality problem I bought some more expensive ones but this made no difference. it's costing me a small fortune. In fact I'm so annoyed with the situation that I'm down to one bulb at present and cooking in the gloom as I don't want to waste anymore money.

Sometimes, it's that the fittings do not allow sufficient airflow, so the bulbs get much warmer than they should, which leads to expansion/contraction when they heat up or cool down, and that causes mechanical failures in the filaments.

The easiest solution is probably to consider replacing them with LEDs, which tend to heat up rather less. But get decent ones (ie, avoid the B&Q jobs and go for a proper brand name with a decent warranty on them).

 

[two sheds]

Can also I was told be vibration from heavy lorries going past if you're near a main road.

Gentle - I was going to suggest that you make sure your house is well insured but I'm not sure the insurance would pay out if anything happened. Worth getting it safety checked soon I'd have thought.

 

[redchris]

Thanks folks. Stupid question alert: can I get LED's with the same screw type fitting as my filament bulbs or do I need to fit a new housing?

 

[High Voltage]

Thanks folks. Stupid question alert: can I get LED's with the same screw type fitting as my filament bulbs or do I need to fit a new housing?

Yes, you can - we've got quite a few GU10 spot lights/ down lighters - and they're always going - so I switched to LED's Aldi / Lidl do 2 for £6 so I've tried them but they seem to go far too regularly for the price that I'm paying - so then I got a box or two from Screwfix - something like 10 in total at I can't remember the price - but they're lasting or see to be lasting longer

What I did do and made a point of changing over was the light fitting - the one we had the GU10 bulbs were a right bastard to get in, the housing being recessed right into the bulb - so you ended up getting hand grease all over the bulb - don't know if this has an effect on the bulb or not but I've switched to a pretty much unenclosed housing so the bulb can be put in easily and, so far, no bulbs have popped - might be the better screw fix one or might be the new light fitting

 

[Boycey]

LED GU10s are shite IME, far too small to fit a decent power supply/led driver.

 

[existentialist]

The encapsulated bulbs will not cause any problems - the outer shell keeps your fingers off the inner capsule, which is what needs to stay grease-free. But you're absolutely right: some fittings are downright crap for getting bulbs in and out of.

I reckon you've got decent bulbs.

I bought a monster pack of GU10s from Tesco a couple of years ago, and they're complete shit - I don't suppose one of them has made it to half their alloted lifespan. That's the point I started to switch to LED.

Incidentally, there is also a fitting you can get (eBay is probably best) that allows you to put a GU10 type bulb into it and then screw it into the ES fitting in the bulbholder. I imagine there's probably a bayonet version, too...

 

[existentialist]

LED GU10s are shite IME, far too small to fit a decent power supply/led driver.

I have had problems with some of mine, yes. I have another lighting job to do, so I'm going to go for a transformer/12V solution instead this time.

 

[equationgirl]

gentlegreen I implore you to get a qualified electrician to do this work. This is your retirement fund!

 

[existentialist]

gentlegreen I implore you to get a qualified electrician to do this work. This is your retirement fund!

This is turning into a bit of a Traditional GG Thread, so it's probably time for me to bow out, but I don't think your suggestion is likely to get much of a hearing!

I'm no one to criticise someone else having a bit of a bodge on something, being something of an amateur bodger myself. But this kind of bodging, and ignoring really quite serious things, worries me, not least because there are plenty of competent bodgers out there who don't take pride in relating how wrong it's all going, and this kind of thing gets us a bad name

 

[Epona]

I think the wiring in my flat is fucked and will need sorting out at some point in the not too distant future.

I know if I get an electician in to have a look, s/he'll take one look and suck a large quantity of air in through his/her teeth and the shake of the head - the combination that suggests "this ain't going to be cheap".

 

[Sue]

I'm moderately competent electrically.
My brother wires 3 phase pumping stations, but annoyingly he isn't qualified to sign off his own domestic wiring these days so I will have to hire someone to get it signed off.
He's going to help me put the front bedroom floor back in and my nephew is training to be a plasterer ...

I think you'd be very lucky to find an electrician prepared to sign this off, given they've no idea what you've done and, by the sounds of it, some of this doesn't conform to the wiring regs.

ETA And in terms of selling it in the future, this is going to be an issue. When I was looking to buy somewhere a few years ago, it was obvious some of the wiring didn't conform to the wiring regs. It put me off the place as if something really obvious hadn't been done properly, that made me wonder what else was wrong with the wiring.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

that made me wonder what else was wrong with the wiring.

or with stuff that wasn't visible...

 

[existentialist]

I think you'd be very lucky to find an electrician prepared to sign this off, given they've no idea what you've done and, by the sounds of it, some of this doesn't conform to the wiring regs.

ETA And in terms of selling it in the future, this is going to be an issue. When I was looking to buy somewhere a few years ago, it was obvious some of the wiring didn't conform to the wiring regs. It put me off the place as if something really obvious hadn't been done properly, that made me wonder what else was wrong with the wiring.

And not just the wiring, but any other work done around the house. Most bodgers (me included) don't tend to restrict themselves to one thing: if they've done a bit of electrical work, there's a bigger chance that they've maybe done some plumbing, or maybe even some mild structural stuff. So a buyer who spots bodgy electrics might reasonably assume that plumbing, plasterwork, carpentry are done to a similar standard and may be hiding similar issues.

Which is why I am very careful to ensure my bodges (such as they are - it's mostly things like wiring downlights into the bathroom ceiling and sticking the odd extra plug point in the kitchen) are strictly to "code", and at least as well done (and in the same way) as a professional would do them: I don't want people noticing that they're "unconventional".

With all respect to gentlegreen, and going solely on his descriptions of his house and what he's done there, most buyers except the most seriously hardened fixer types are going to run away screaming. And those that don't will know that they're very much in a buyers' market.

Either he's going to need to get it fixed up professionally - ideally with a tradesperson who is prepared to take him on as "fitter", so he can do all the time-consuming basic stuff - or do it himself in such a way that a professional is going to be able to sign it off with a minimum of fuss.

Given all that, I think he's got bigger problems than an exploding kettle...