Does your fuse board keep tripping? Then read on

When your fuse board trips out and you lose power to your electrical appliances around your home, it can be a real inconvenience to everyday life. We receive a lot of calls stating that the power has tripped out and the customer isn’t sure what to do or what has caused it. In fact a good 10% of our work if not more  in and around the Peterborough area can be put down to fault finding on domestic and commercial circuits. Below are just a few reasons why your fuse board might be tripping and what you can do about it before you have to consider calling an electrician

Why do Circuits trip?

Circuits will almost always trip due to their being a fault on the electrical system within your home. There are a mix of reasons that the circuit protection will trip out or blow, some of which are easy to fault find and fix, some will require a registered electrician with fault finding equipment to sort out. Below are some of the main causes of faults within your homes. As you can see, a lot of faults are caused and therefore can be remedied by homeowners.

• An overloaded circuit
• Too many appliances being used at the same time
• A faulty or misused appliance
• Overfilled kettles
• Unclean toasters
• Cooker rings worn out or cracked
• Faulty immersion heaters
• Faulty connections on leads to appliances e.g. televisions or stereos etc
• Light bulbs blowing
• Water in exterior accessories such as outside lights/sockets
• DIY installations of lights/sockets and other accessories
• Faulty heating controls i.e. Pump or valves

How easy is it to reset the power on my fuse board?

Your fuse box, or consumer unit, will either have fuses or trip switches. Modern electric circuits are fitted with a circuit breaker fuse system; if a fault develops, a switch is tripped and the circuit is broken. To reset the power on these simply push the tripped switch back up to reset the power.

Older fuse boards have fuse holders and when a fuse is blown it must be replaced or rewired. These fuses are becoming harder to find as they are not widely available for purchase. For example when was the last time you saw some fuse wire available for sale at your corner shop?

If you experience problems with an old-fashioned fuse box, it might be sensible to install a replacement which conforms to current regulations for ease, safety and peace of mind. If you need assistance with any kind of electrical installation we would recommend calling out a registered electrician.

How to narrow down the cause

Open the cover on the consumer unit to see which switches have tripped to the OFF position. Put them back to the ON position.

If tripping occurs again, it is probably being caused by a faulty appliance. You need to identify which circuit is affected and which appliance on that circuit is causing the problem.

Go around the house noting which set of lights or sockets are not working. Unplug all appliances on that problem circuit and switch off any immersion heaters (if you have one), boilers, outside lights etc.  Switch the tripped switch to the ON position and plug in the appliances one by one until the trip goes again. If it does trip again then you will require a new appliance.

If it doesn’t trip, then go around the house and turn back on the Immersion heater, Boiler, outside lights etc. If these trip out the circuit then they may be a little more tricky to fix, therefore you will need to phone a registered electrician for some further advice.

By following the above, you will of hopefully narrowed down the cause of the tripping, if not actually found and remedied the fault. Either way, by following the above procedures you will of hopefully saved yourself some money as the electricians fault finding time will of been shortened.

Please feel free to watch the below video filmed by us which will clarify the above process further

If you need to find a registered electrician in your area then please follow the link where you will be asked to enter your postcode http://www.niceic.com/