ekectrical

[lawbringer]

house seems not to have enough power for all the appliances. washing machine goes on the tv goes off. telephone won't work. put kettle on fridge/cooker ovens go off. there is no earth problems and 240v coming into house.

[buildersmate]

How, precisely, does the fault show itself. Through the fuses/MCBs at the Consumer Unit failing? - or something else.

[matt1e]

i'll put money on its the RCD tripping
How do you know there are no earth problems lawbringer?

[knobbynits]

Well I am a sparks and it seems like you have a problem and you do not get 240 volts it is regulated to 230 volts
Sorry law not enuogh info to diagnose your problem mate and the cooker is a tottaly different circuit.

So feed me more info if this is not a wind up of course

[knobbynits]

Yeas what I can see agrre with mattie your appliance is at fault and is tripping the the rcd an earth to neutral fault does that

[terence7556]

how are you sure there are no earth faults? all these problems occur on your downstairs ring main, except for the cooker which should be on a separate circuit.
do you have a modern c.c.u. with a split board, cos all the info is pointing to a r.c.d. tripping as the others lads have pointed out

[vivandorron]

The telephone has nothing whatsoever to do with your domestic electricity. Furthermore, knobbynits is correct in pointing-out that your cooker is on a seperate circuit to other appliances. Perhaps your question is a wind-up!...Ron

[vivandorron]

I wish to clarify my original posting.

knobbynits did not say that your cooker is on a seperate circuit but correctly implied that it should be; as did terence 7556.

I do like to try and be precise about matters and only hope I am not clouding issues; but would wish to establish the true position....Ron.

[lawbringer]

thanks for the replies guys. it's no wind up. had electricity company guys out yesterday. the cable bringing in power had a live earth, think he called the cable a concentric cable, don't know if that is correct spelling. i'm not a spark or even familiar with electricity. the power cable into my house has been replaced but the power still seems inadequate for my appliances. the cooker is on a seperate cable. Wahing machine does the wash badly but won't spin. table lamps on at night dip every 15 - 20 mins then brighten again after a few minutes.
when i put the kettle on the power on the other appliances dips considerably. guy from the company said my earth was not good enough and couldn't give a explanation for the power dipping, he's not a spark just a linesman. the company are putting a power meter in to check the power input is not dipping intermittently. he also mentioned the fact that new houses around me may be a factor. all the wires in the consumer box seem fine.
last night i heard scratching in the lounge ceiling i went up into the void with a torch but couldn't see anything. could a mouse be causing this prob?
my spark is home from holiday at the end of the week, hope he is well rested, he's going to be busy!
Lawbringer : )

[lawbringer]

regarding the rcd switch. it all started with that, it began tripping and not resetting. it would reset for 10 - 20 seconds and trip again. got a spark in and he checked the wires and they seemed fine. i got another rcd switch and it did the same thing. it was even tripping when all the fuses were switched off. all the ceiling lights work fine. but the fuses on the right side with the rcd won't work. the spark did something to bypass the rcd so i have power, he left and that is when the power started dipping. he doen't know that yet as he went on holiday that night. i've live in this house for 2 year with no problems until now. why is it happening now?
i've opened all the power sockets and they seem fine.

[terence7556]

perhaps as you indicated you have a pesky little mouse chewing things up and this is causing problems where the animal has eaten through insulation on the outer skin of cables, causing conductors to touch
your spark is going to carry out earth tests etc, but this is time consuming work
good luck with it