Lamps and cooker "burning", what could it be?

daigo75

Hi all,
I recently had a strange issue in my home and I'd like to get your opinion about it. On saturday I tried to switch on the lights on the extractor fan (2 halogen spot bulbs), and they suddenly flashed (the fuse which protects them died as well).
Fortunately, the extractor fan itself is still working.

I thought it was just bad luck, but yesterday, when preparing a meal, the ceramic hob burned down as well and the safety switch connected to cooker/oven went off (smoke came out from the corner where the LEDs are positioned. I checked under it, and all 5 LEDs are burned). :(

Yesterday afternoon I switched on the light in the kitchen and one of the four halogen bulbs flashed and died as well. The last casualty was yesterday night, when another of the bulbs in the kitchen died in a flash.

At the moment all of these "deaths" are located in the kitchen, but I'm thinking it's just a coincidence. Of course I'm calling an electrician to have a look at the whole system, but I'd like to hear your opinions about this. What could the cause be?
Thanks.

lb163

This could be caused by a voltage surge but it is best to get a qualified electrician out to have a look. In fact a full inspection & test of your installation would be a good idea.
Liam ex- RECI Inspector

Stoner

yeah it does sound like a voltage issue alright, are the halogen lights in the kitchen 220Vac or 12 Vac?

lb163

Stoner, they could be either, if it is a voltage problem you should be careful with you TV and fridge because it could cause serious problems to them as well

daigo75

Stoner: Halogens are all 220V (both extractor fan and kitchen lamp).

lb163: I'm also kind of worried about fridge and TV, even if they seem to be unaffected at the moment. Most important, I have PCs at home and they are VERY important, but I connected them to an extension with a surge protector, just in case.

Just a curiosity, since I'm not an expert: is it easy for an electrician to find these kind of anomalies? Also, in case the circuit is prone to spikes/surges, how difficult would be to fix it? Since I have the issue, at least I'd like to find out more about it. Thanks.

lb163

Daigo75,
It could be hard enough for an electrician to track down this problem, he could arrive and carry out tests and everything could look ok, a fault like this is not always present so the best way of going about it maybe would to fit a voltage recorder on the installation.
Over all surge/lightning protection could be fitted to your main MCB board, this units look like mcbs, very importantant for computer/electronics

DublinDilbert

daigo75 wrote: »

Hi all,
I recently had a strange issue in my home and I'd like to get your opinion about it. On saturday I tried to switch on the lights on the extractor fan (2 halogen spot bulbs), and they suddenly flashed (the fuse which protects them died as well).
Fortunately, the extractor fan itself is still working.

I thought it was just bad luck, but yesterday, when preparing a meal, the ceramic hob burned down as well and the safety switch connected to cooker/oven went off (smoke came out from the corner where the LEDs are positioned. I checked under it, and all 5 LEDs are burned). :(

Yesterday afternoon I switched on the light in the kitchen and one of the four halogen bulbs flashed and died as well. The last casualty was yesterday night, when another of the bulbs in the kitchen died in a flash.

At the moment all of these "deaths" are located in the kitchen, but I'm thinking it's just a coincidence. Of course I'm calling an electrician to have a look at the whole system, but I'd like to hear your opinions about this. What could the cause be?
Thanks.

"I tried to switch on the lights on the extractor fan (2 halogen spot bulbs), and they suddenly flashed (the fuse which protects them died as well).
Fortunately, the extractor fan itself is still working."

Which fuse blew when the lights went on the extractor fan?

"(smoke came out from the corner where the LEDs are positioned. I checked under it, and all 5 LEDs are burned)"

If you like take a digital pic of the damage and post here, and we'll have a look.

lb163 wrote: »

Daigo75,
It could be hard enough for an electrician to track down this problem, he could arrive and carry out tests and everything could look ok, a fault like this is not always present so the best way of going about it maybe would to fit a voltage recorder on the installation.
Over all surge/lightning protection could be fitted to your main MCB board, this units look like mcbs, very importantant for computer/electronics

Based on the above description it would be very hard to rule anything in or anything out at this point in time. It would be point less fitting any sort of protection, until a root cause is found.

The extractor fan & cooker would be on different circuits, so if there is a voltage "surge" the whole house would have to be seeing it. Hence my question would be has anything else failed in any other part of the house?

davelerave

As said fit surge protection at fusebox and at tv and computer sockets .measure voltage and check for voltage drop under load and test installation before fitting a recorder

lb163

The best way to sort this out is get your electrical contractor in to do an overall check of the installation to eliminate other possible causes then do a voltage recording say over 24 hours.
I would reccommend that all electrical installations would be fitted with surge/lightning protection anyway to protect electronic equipment. You could get a lightning stike or surge at anytime, an ESB transformer could blow and cause a surge and cause a lot of damage.

daigo75

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Which fuse blew when the lights went on the extractor fan?

It's a fuse that is connected to the lights only. There's a box attached to the fan, where the cables for the lights start from. It's also a pain in the *** to find a replacement one, it's very small with no inscriptions on it.

Unfortunately I can't take pictures of the damage, as it's not really clear from outside. I tried to remove the bottom panel from the cooker to see if I could figure out what was wrong, but when I noticed the "toasted" corner I closed the panel without touching anything. Better to avoid frying myself as well. :rolleyes:

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Based on the above description it would be very hard to rule anything in or anything out at this point in time. It would be point less fitting any sort of protection, until a root cause is found.

The extractor fan & cooker would be on different circuits, so if there is a voltage "surge" the whole house would have to be seeing it. Hence my question would be has anything else failed in any other part of the house?

I didn't have any problem in any other part of the house, so far, everything happened in the kitchen. This makes the issue more "mysterious", but I hope it will be fixed before I lose my PCs or other equipment.

daigo75

lb163 wrote: »

The best way to sort this out is get your electrical contractor in to do an overall check of the installation to eliminate other possible causes then do a voltage recording say over 24 hours.
I would reccommend that all electrical installations would be fitted with surge/lightning protection anyway to protect electronic equipment. You could get a lightning stike or surge at anytime, an ESB transformer could blow and cause a surge and cause a lot of damage.

Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately the house is not mine and I cannot decide the extent of the intervention, however I will insist to get everything tested. Just a question: you wrote I would reccommend that all electrical installations would be fitted with surge/lightning protection anyway to protect electronic equipment.. What does this imply, technically? Is it something that can be done on the main board, or does it have to be done on every socket?
Thanks.

lb163

You can fit surge/lightning protection at main board to cover complet installation. It is not a requirment of the electrical regulations to do so but it may be in the near future, any way it makes good sence to do so

daigo75

lb163 wrote: »

You can fit surge/lightning protection at main board to cover complet installation. It is not a requirment of the electrical regulations to do so but it may be in the near future, any way it makes good sence to do so

Thanks. I will ask the electrician to fit that protection, since the circuit seems to be quite old.

davelerave

Its best to fit both to protect pcs etc as you can get surges in-house

daigo75

davelerave wrote: »

Its best to fit both to protect pcs etc as you can get surges in-house

Thanks davelerave. I have a surge/spike protector extension for my PCs and I'm going to buy one for the PC/DVD area. I hope other appliances, like oven, fridge, lamps and so on are less "sensitive", once the main protection has been fitted on the main board.

DublinDilbert

Guys, your not even sure if it is a voltage surge... Surge protection will have a limited life span, it can only take so many hits, so if there is a problem this will only mask it.

Voltage surges do happen, but are much more likely in industry where large loads are being switched... They tend not to happen as often in a domestic setting.

If the voltage "surge" was large enough to damage the halogen light bulbs, why was no other bulb in the house damaged?

fishdog

Guys, your not even sure if it is a voltage surge

I would have to agree with DublinDilbert.

It may well be a surge, you can not be sure.

I would suggest to go and talk to the neighbours and see if anyone else has this problem or similar. If others living near you (posssibly fed from the same traffo) have this problem it may be up to ESB Networks to fix!

This exercise will cost you nothing, and whatever you learn from it you can tell the electrician when he/she turns up.

daigo75

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Voltage surges do happen, but are much more likely in industry where large loads are being switched... They tend not to happen as often in a domestic setting.

If the voltage "surge" was large enough to damage the halogen light bulbs, why was no other bulb in the house damaged?

This is a good point. I don't know what's the resistance of halogen bulbs against surges, but I agree it's strange that no other bulb was affected. Maybe they're wired to a separate circuit, but I'm just guessing.

Fishdog: I had a chat with a neighbour yesterday, it seems that this issue never happened to him or his nearest neighbour. However, the house where I live is relatively far from the others and has a big pole in a corner of the garden, where there's a big "cylinder" (sorry, I don't know how to call it) connected to electricity cables, so I guess the supply is different. Maybe I can contact ESB and ask them, it won't cost me a lot. Thanks for the suggestion.

davelerave

I dont think weve been advocating surge protection alone if you read the posts

lb163

Diago75, It sounds from the description of your ESB supply that you are on your own transformer, have you had any problems in the past with bulbs blowing more often than they should. The fact that this has happened only in the kitchen makes it less like a voltage surge

daigo75

lb163 wrote: »

Diago75, It sounds from the description of your ESB supply that you are on your own transformer, have you had any problems in the past with bulbs blowing more often than they should. The fact that this has happened only in the kitchen makes it less like a voltage surge

I can't really say, I moved in no more than 2 weeks ago. I'll try to contact previous tenant and see what he says.

By the way, one thing just came to my mind... Maybe could be related to my problem. Outside the house I have some halogen 500W floodlights, the same model as this one:
http://tinyurl.com/8vff92

One of them is not working, so I wanted to replace the bulb, but I noticed something strange: the bulb inside the lamp is broken in a half, and the front glass is shattered. Probably I'm now exaggerating, but is it possible that the bulb "exploded" and broke the front glass as well? I know for sure that incandescent bulbs can't do so much damage, but I have no idea about powerful halogen (please don't kill me if I wrote something stupid ).

fishdog

I dont think weve been advocating surge protection alone if you read the posts

I know, although as you said this may be the problem. It was the first thing I thought of.

fishdog

The fact that this has happened only in the kitchen makes it less like a voltage surge

It may be the case that the lights in the kitchen use lamps that are more sensitive to excess voltage.

For example I have found that GU10 lamps blow much easier than most other lamps.

Out of interest are the lamps in your kitchen different to the ones in the rest of the house??

daigo75

fishdog wrote: »

Out of interest are the lamps in your kitchen different to the ones in the rest of the house??

Yes. In the kitchen I have four GU10 spotlights on the ceiling (one of them is LED, previous tenant replaced it), the extractor fan had two halogen spotlights with an Edison screw (never seen them before). In the rest of the house I just have plain incandescent and, very soon, CFL bulbs (hoping they won't explode as well, they're quite expensive).

fishdog

Yes. In the kitchen I have four GU10 spotlights on the ceiling

Ok as the others pointed out before it may be caused by a surge, but this is at best only a guess. It seems a little more like this is the case now as several lamps have blown and only the ones most susceptible to over voltage have blown.

The ESB can attach a machine to your supply that will monitor your voltage and draw a graph of the supply voltage over a few days to determine if the voltage you are being supplied with is within tollerance. I dont know the procedure for getting this test done but I would guess that it will only be done with the reccomendation of the electrician that checks the place out for you. I have not seen this done, but have heard about it.

The ESB must guarantee a certain quality of electrical supply. It must always be within defined tollerances of voltage and frequency etc.

DublinDilbert

daigo75 wrote: »

I had a chat with a neighbour yesterday, it seems that this issue never happened to him or his nearest neighbour. However, the house where I live is relatively far from the others and has a big pole in a corner of the garden, where there's a big "cylinder" (sorry, I don't know how to call it) connected to electricity cables, so I guess the supply is different. Maybe I can contact ESB and ask them, it won't cost me a lot. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ok now we are getting places....

Is there any large motors around?? eg heat pump or milking machine etc?

It might be worth getting one of them voltage / energy monitors and keeping an eye on the mains voltage, they are only about €14 http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

The problem with putting in surge protection is that its like a band-aid, it doesn't fix the problem and can only take so many surges before needing to be replaced.... surge protection isn't a bad idea, but in this case would just mask an underlying problem...

davelerave

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Ok now we are getting places....

Is there any large motors around?? eg heat pump or milking machine etc?

It might be worth getting one of them voltage / energy monitors and keeping an eye on the mains voltage, they are only about €14 http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

The problem with putting in surge protection is that its like a band-aid, it doesn't fix the problem and can only take so many surges before needing to be replaced.... surge protection isn't a bad idea, but in this case would just mask an underlying problem...

Sure its a bad idea to shove in a surge diverter and walk away .its part of an overall solution

daigo75

Hi again. To thank all the people who gave me suggestions I thought to write an update about the issue. First, previous tenant had a similar issue (halogen bulbs bursting) and he had to replace some of them in few months. As I suspected, he didn't think of a bigger problem behind that and just kept replacing bulbs. ESB will now send somebody to install a recorder to check if there's any issue with the supply.
About the questions: I live in the countryside and there's a farm not so far away, but, as I wrote, I think I have a separate transformer for the house (the famous "pole" in the garden". Anyway, the electrician will check internal cabling and ESB the supply, I think somebody will spot the issue, finally.

Thank you all for your help.

lb163

Daigo75,
It would be interesting to know what the outcome will be so maybe you might do a post to tell me what the problem was.

Good Luck and I hope it will not be expensive

daigo75

Of course, I'll keep you informed.
I hope it will be solved soon because I can't install the new cooker until the issue is there, I don't want to burn that one as well.

fishdog

ESB will now send somebody to install a recorder to check if there's any issue with the supply.

I thought they might alright!

How did you arrange this?? Was it just by phoning them and describing the problem??

You may be looking at a new ESB traffo.

Good luck with it!!

daigo75

fishdog wrote: »

I thought they might alright!

How did you arrange this?? Was it just by phoning them and describing the problem??

You may be looking at a new ESB traffo.

Good luck with it!!

Yes, I called them and described the "sequence of deaths". I underlined that my hob burned and this cannot be considered "normal". That was all.

fishdog

I would be interested to know how long it takes before the ESB responds, please let us know when they set up.

It might be worth getting one of them voltage / energy monitors and keeping an eye on the mains voltage, they are only about €14 http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

I think this would have little chance of working. This device does not draw a graph or store any historical information. This means you could be watching it for days on end without seeing a significant voltage fluctuation. It would seem from reading the OPs posts that tis problem only occured once over a period of a few weeks.

daigo75

fishdog wrote: »

I would be interested to know how long it takes before the ESB responds, please let us know when they set up.

I called ESB on monday, I've been told they would call me to make an appointment. Yesterday the technician called me and came out with "I'm in front of your home, but I guess you're not there." :rolleyes:

He'll come again today, hopefully I'll get some answers.

fishdog

Fair play to the ESB for being so quick to respond. It is good to see.

Keeks

daigo75 wrote: »

Thanks. I will ask the electrician to fit that protection, since the circuit seems to be quite old.

Just wondering if it is a new Cooker/Extractor?

If so, the new cooker might be of a higher wattage that the old one and so be drawing more current.

But generally this would cause the problem back at the fuse board and not the cooker.

But if it is a new cooker then it might just be wired up wrong

daigo75

The ESB technician and the electrician came yesterday. The former installed the recorder, spent some minutes looking at it and said the voltage is perfectly in range (235 V when he checked). He left the recorder plugged in, we'll check again in some days (this morning a saw a peak to almost 250V, but it seems "normal").

The electrician said there's nothing wrong in the house (though he just had a look at the main panel) and replaced the hob. He opened the old one and I noticed that the burned part is only the corner with the LEDs , the rest is "clean and untouched".

He said the old one burned down because of a short circuit, maybe caused by water, but I'm not convinced. Of course I use water when cooking, and sometimes it can happen that some spills on the hob, but I never had any issues with this in the past with other hobs. They are designed to deal with that, and they should be completely sealed... I'm afraid I won't get any more information about that.

So, at the moment I'm recording the voltage to see if ESB can tell me something more. I'll keep you up to date. Thanks.

fishdog

The electrician said there's nothing wrong in the house

I have not seen this house, but from what has been described and the more I think about it I think your electrician is correct.

though he just had a look at the main panel

This would be a good place to start because it is one of the few places inside your house that the cooker and lights have in common.

The former installed the recorder, spent some minutes looking at it and said the voltage is perfectly in range (235 V when he checked)

Give it time. As you pointed out the next morning you saw:

a peak to almost 250V

That is why the ESB want to have it installed for a few days.

He said the old one burned down because of a short circuit, maybe caused by water, but I'm not convinced

I would not think so myself. They are designed with cooking in mind!! This would not explain the lamps blowing either.

I'll keep you up to date

Thanks, I would be interested.

It is possible that you just had a faulty hob and a bad batch of bulbs too! Stranger things have happened!!

daigo75

Hi again, tomorrow the guy from ESB will take the recorder, which recorded nothing strange at all. There's been a peak to 250 V, but the technician told me it's in the tolerance. This, added to electrician's answer "everything is fine here" makes me believe that Matrix has been reprogrammed and there's really never been any issue, or simply that one of them (or both) are wrong and it will be difficult to spot the real issue without leaving the recorder plugged for some centuries. :rolleyes:

At the moment I replaced the fuse in the extractor fan (damn 5x20 mm, 1 Amp, impossible to find), replaced the bulbs, replaced the cooker and replaced the spotlights on the ceiling with a good standard CFL bulb. No issues since that cursed day, but I'll install a surge protector on the TV/DVD area anyway, just in case.

fishdog

Intermittent faults are always the hardest to find!

Perhaps you will not have another surge for weeks or with any luck never again. I cant think what your electrician could have done wrong to cause these things to happen.

Good luck with it.

davelerave

daigo75 wrote: »

Hi again, tomorrow the guy from ESB will take the recorder, which recorded nothing strange at all. There's been a peak to 250 V, but the technician told me it's in the tolerance. This, added to electrician's answer "everything is fine here" makes me believe that Matrix has been reprogrammed and there's really never been any issue, or simply that one of them (or both) are wrong and it will be difficult to spot the real issue without leaving the recorder plugged for some centuries. :rolleyes:

At the moment I replaced the fuse in the extractor fan (damn 5x20 mm, 1 Amp, impossible to find), replaced the bulbs, replaced the cooker and replaced the spotlights on the ceiling with a good standard CFL bulb. No issues since that cursed day, but I'll install a surge protector on the TV/DVD area anyway, just in case.

you should fit the surge diverter at the fusebox for protection although as already said they have to be maintained and they dont solve an underlying problem if there is one

daigo75

Thanks Dave,
I understand that I'm just "covering" eventual problems, but, since both the technicians gave an answer like "everything ok, just bad luck" I can't convince my landlord to install anything and I'm not allowed to do it myself. :rolleyes:

By the way, talking about bad luck (off topic, but kind of "funny"), this morning I got up to find out that I have no cold water in the two bathrooms. After some investigation I think there's something wrong with the tank in the attic (probably something stuck in it, I wonder who the hell got the idea to put an OPEN tank in the attic, so everything can fall in it, from spiders to dust to particles of insulation). I tried to walk to it and have a look, but I almost destroyed the floor/ceiling, it's just thin plasterboard (another "great" idea, we usually put FLOORING in the attic). Now I'm waiting for the plumber to check it out, maybe I'll post another topic about the "odissey".

Thank you all for the information and the support.

davelerave

Forgot youre a tenant no problem