Faulty oven...what should you do?

1) My oven keeps tripping the electrics, is it broken?

So, there are a number of different reasons why an oven might trip the electricity supply in your home and they will require investigation by an electrician normally to find the cause. If you find that your oven keeps tripping your electrics then give us a call and we will come and investigate this for you. We specialise in fault finding and we will be able to tell you very quickly where the fault is and what can be done to fix it.

2) What things cause an oven to trip the electric supply?

There are many different things that can cause this such as:

• Faulty element in the oven.
• Faulty circuitry in the oven.
• Water ingress into the oven.
• Faulty supply cable from the wall to the oven.
• Faulty wiring in the back of the oven switch.
• Damaged oven switch.
• Damaged or burnt wiring on the oven circuit somewhere.
• A faulty RCD switches.
• A fault on ANOTHER circuit that has NOTHING to do with the oven.

Yes, that’s right, very occasionally there can be a fault elsewhere in the house causing the oven to appear guilty 😊 . An RCD that trips in your consumer unit / electric box will only be able to pick up on certain faults. There are better devices available that will be able to pinpoint any faults better than this but if you have an RCD rather than an RCBO you will find that it will disconnect power to several things all at once, quite inconvenient.

3) What is an RCBO, what are you talking about?

An RCBO is a different type of RCD. An RCD comes in several forms. Typically, most homes will have an RCD, RCB, RCCB device that controls or feeds power to several circuits at once. In the event of a fault the RCD, RCB, RCCB will disconnect power to ALL the circuits it is protecting causing half of your home or more to lose power all at once.

An RCBO is a standalone RCD and circuit breaker all in one and is only fitted to ONE circuit at a time making things much more convenient in the event of a fault and only disconnecting one circuit when there is a problem.

4) Never mind that, back to my oven...

Yes, if we find that the oven is faulty then we will further investigate the issue. It could be perhaps that an element requires replacing, this is normally the case if the oven is turning off after a few seconds of powering up. If the electric is tripping the moment the power is turned on then it could be another internal issue. In any event, we can get your power back on for you, fix any issues on the wiring inside your home and if the appliance needs specialist repairs, we are always happy to recommend an appliance engineer.

The photograph shows a fairly new oven that was tripping the electrical supply. We investigated the issue and found that the wiring in the walls of the property leading up to the oven was in good condition, the RCD switch in the consumer unit was working as it should and when we removed the oven and tested, we found that there was an internal issue.

The oven was still under warranty so we recommended that the customer contact the oven manufacturer or shop where it was purchased for further advice.

5) So, you can’t fix ovens?

When your faulty oven keeps tripping your electrical system, we can sometimes help by replacing a faulty element but we are not appliance repair specialists. We do have the number for a local appliance repair specialist who can help in these situation as we don’t like to leave our customers with no help once we have left 😊

6) What if my trip switch is actually faulty?

Well, we can definitely help with that. We can test the RCD and make sure that it is working as expected. These are important devices that protect you against electric shock and their safe operation is paramount to your safety. If one of these devices is faulty then it will require changing without delay.

7) What about the wiring in the walls?

If we discover that there is a fault on the wiring that is buried in your home then we are normally able to locate this and repair the problem. We require some time to trace the issue and once this has been done, we are able to issue you with a quote for the repair before we go ahead so you know what the repairs will cost. There is no obligation to use our services beyond our initial attendance and we never pressure sell to our customers.

8) What if the fault is in the walls? How is this repaired?

If your faulty oven is tripping your system and the fault is traced to a cable in the wall then we narrow down the issue to a section of cable and then replace the cable. This can be buried back into the wall if you prefer the cable to be hidden or if we can we will route the cable out of sight. Sometimes we are able to joint a cable rather than replacing the whole run and we will advise you if this can be done on a case-by-case basis.

In order to bury cabling in the walls we have to cut the wall open if its plasterboard or cut a channel if the wall is masonry. Both create some disruption and mess but we are as tidy as we can be and ensure that we do a nice neat job for you. Most importantly, once the cable has been replaced or repaired, we will test the work using our specialist test equipment to confirm that the circuit is safe to use and we will produce an electrical certificate for the work to give you peace of mind and let you know that the work has been carried out in accordance with all wiring regulations and building regulations.  

If you’re worried about a faulty appliance like an oven, give us a call and our friendly team will advise the best next steps.