My RCD has tripped!

1) Not to worry, your local electrician in Liverpool can help.

If your RCD HAS TRIPPED in your consumer unit then there is an electrical problem somewhere in your property. This may be something as simple as an appliance that has gone faulty or it could be something more tricky to find.

2) What is an RCD?

RCD stands for Residual Current Device. This probably doesn’t mean much so let me explain further. In your home you have wiring in the walls that feeds sockets and switches. Not all the wiring is connected together, there are normally several switches in your consumer unit  / electric box that are marked different things. You will have one or two sockets switches and a couple labelled lights and so on. Each of these switches will have a cable connected that runs through your home forming a circuit.

The RCD monitors 1 or more of these circuits and as long as everything is operating normally then the RCD is quite happy. When the RCD senses that there is a problem it assumes the worst and turns off the circuits. Current flows through each of these circuits and the RCD measure this electrical current. It expects no current to be missing from any of these circuits. If there is some current missing it assumes that the missing current is flowing through a human causing them to have an electric shock! Quite literally the RCD devices are there to save our lives. They are there to protect us from electric shock and to prevent a significant current flowing through us in the event of a fault.

3) No one in the house Is having a shock so why is it turning off?

Well, the RCD cannot detect WHERE missing current is going. All it knows is that there is some missing. So, if an appliance has gone faulty, water has gone into something electrical, damage has occurred to a cable and so on then usually current gets out and leaks away down the earth. The RCD senses this and disconnects power to all the circuits it protects. They are very good devices but also a little bit of a problem at times.

4) I can’t see any faulty appliances or bad wiring?

Sometimes there may not be visible damage to any of your appliances or wiring and the only way to find exactly what is causing the issue is for a qualified electrician who is confident in testing to come and inspect your home and the wiring to ascertain the cause of the device turning off. Electrical faults can often only be found with an electricians specialised test equipment and expert knowledge of wiring systems. Sometimes faults can come and go causing no end of trouble for an electrician trying to find them.

5) Is the RCD faulty itself?

This situation does happen although it is far more common to find that the issue is actually something plugged in to or connected to one of the circuits. RCD switches do sometimes go faulty and we can always test this whilst we are carrying out fault finding. If the RCD HAS TRIPPED then it may itself be faulty.

6) Can I just switch this back on and carry on?

In some instances the RCD will switch back on and stay on, in which case the problem was likely to be a temporary glitch or random occurrence and hopefully that will be that. However, if the RCD trips again or will not turn back on then PLEASE do not continually try to reset this device. Continually turning one of these devices back on will eventually cause it to fail. They are not designed to trip over and over again and continue to work. The older the device the more chance there is that permanent failure will occur if these are reset too many times.

7) I have broken my RCD because I reset it too many times what now?

Well done. Also, oh dear! Now we have a pickle. Most consumer units are not upgraded as often as they should be and what tends to happen is that consumer unit manufacturers eventually stop producing equipment, change equipment, go bust and so forth. What this means is that, the older your equipment that is now broken, the less chance there is that we will be able to purchase replacement RCD devices for you meaning often that the only way to repair this issue is to replace the consumer unit completely. Not ideal. Would have been better to find the fault!!

8) What can I do?

There is a help sheet section on our website for you to look through which may help you restore the power to your home without the need for an emergency callout. This can be found here. If the help sheet doesn’t help then you will need to call us to come and investigate for you.

9) How much will it cost and how long will it take?

We are always happy to give a fixed price quote for works, however, when there is a fault that is causing a circuit breaker or an RCD to trip then it is not often possible to give you a fixed price quote for a repair. This is because we have to spend an unknown amount of time searching for the issue. Often Sockets will have to be removed from the wall and wiring checked. This can take a varying amount of time depending upon how many need to be removed and how much furniture or personal belongings are in the way of us working. We are happy to discuss costs with you and the things that you can do to minimise costs and aid us in finding the problem quickly.

10) Am I in any danger?

Generally there is not any danger to worry about. If an RCD is faulty or and RCD HAS TRIPPED and not working properly then this is more of a cause for concern as there may no longer be sufficient electric shock protection in your home to keep you and your family safe. If you are in any doubt as to the condition of your electrical installation or you are worried about the safety of any aspect of your home electrics then please do not hesitate to give us a call.