My Kettle Blew Up!

danjo-xx

well......allmost....I flicked the switch on it and it started to heat up (it was allready hot from a cup of tea I had a few minutes earlier and I had just moved over to the fridge and BANG:eek: it was more like a car tyre blowing out or a small explosion.

I was expecting a burning smell and probably some smoke but nothing. Lifted kettle off stand and could see burn marks.


One MCB tripped and it also tripped the ELCB beside it but funny it didn't trip the other MCB's.

I though once the ELCB tripped..... none of the other mains circuit's would work either.

indie armada

once the elcb tripped it should have killed the power going to the other mcbs that are connected to it,ie the sockets in the house but the likes of the lights ,cooker and immersion would be uneffected by the elcb tripping.
the rest of the mcbs on the socket circut would remain untripped after the elcb and the mcb for the kettle had tripped.

danjo-xx

indie armada wrote: »

once the elcb tripped it should have killed the power going to the other mcbs that are connected to it,ie the sockets in the house but the likes of the lights ,cooker and immersion would be uneffected by the elcb tripping.
the rest of the mcbs on the socket circut would remain untripped after the elcb and the mcb for the kettle had tripped.

yeah its a bit strange, that the ELCB only killed the power to one socket circuit (kitchen) I would have thought like you said power to all the socket circuits should have been killed.

Am I right in saying that an ELCB (Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker) is the same as what we now call RCD and if I trip this then power to all socket circuits should be killed.

paddydriver

indie armada wrote: »

once the elcb tripped it should have killed the power going to the other mcbs that are connected to it,ie the sockets in the house but the likes of the lights ,cooker and immersion would be uneffected by the elcb tripping.
the rest of the mcbs on the socket circut would remain untripped after the elcb and the mcb for the kettle had tripped.

We have had the main ELCB (Or is it called RCD??) trip recently when toaster is used a few times on the trot. I have put one of the plug in breakers on it now to see if I can isolate it to the toaster - no trips since.

Anyway, interesting in above post that cooker is would not be on the main ELCB? Why is this as I noticed our cooker did not trip when the ELCB went and I was thinking I need to have this checked out? - any thoughts?

Thanks

meercat

you are right.the elcb is also called rcd.it should knock off all socket outlets.i see from your pic that the immersion group is not on your rcd.current regs state that it should be.it probably was ok at the time of installation though.press the trip button on elcb and check your sockets though

meercat

paddydriver.the elcb/rcd is mostly for portable appliances.your cooker should be hard wired.it should be on its own 32amp mcb tripswitch

paddydriver

Thanks meercat - will check this out. I know we had a problem with tripping in our office and it was impossible to trace to I got sparks to install RCBO's on all circuits and we were able to find the one then. We could not handle all our servers/computers dying randomly.

M cebee

there would be 'accumulated leakage' with computer power supplies

so it would be preferable to use rcbos anyway


sockets for IT equipment can be exempted from the requirement for rcd protection provided they're not used for general purpose

rules 554.4.1