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For some time we have had intermittent RCD tripping on our socket ringmain in our house.
Sadly the way the consumer unit has been set up is that every socket in the house is served from this one RCD, so if one of the appliances cause the sockets trip everything goes off until we reset the breaker, this has made it problematic to diagnose to say the least.
Anyway, to cut a long story short we had an electrician attend our property who ran a few tests on the consumer unit, and we mentioned that we had been having problems with turning the washing machine on at the socket the night before.
We got the electrician to test the socket, this led to the conclusion that the electrical fault must lie with the Candy Smart Activa washing machine, and the electrician seemed quite certain that it was an appliance fault so we went ahead and replaced the machine with a Candy Grando 1600.
Ironically, as soon as we had installed the new machine it had developed a leak after the second or third wash (it had only been delivered hours before) which the engineer who came the day after fixed by attaching a missing clip on the waste pipe inside the machine. I assume it must have been missing this clip from when it left the factory, as he said he couldnt find the clip inside the bottom of the machine.
To get to my point, this new machine also trips our socket RCD, but the engineer did test the machine before he left and told us there didn’t appear to be any electrical faults.
Could this new machine also be faulty and be causing the same issue as our old appliance? The waste pipe leak 2 hours in from new doesnt fill me with confidence to be honest and it could be possible some water got to somewhere it shouldnt have.
Guess it might be time to call the Candy engineer out before we call the electricial again just to ensure its not the washing machine thats responsible. Sorry for the long post, just wondered if anyone would shed some light on the subject.
Many thanks!
Re: Electrical problem with washing machine or not?
I’ll hazard a guess, just a theory, but i’ve seen it before with a steam-iron……
both contain an element which is basically a metal tube with a heater-wire running through the middle.the space around the wire is packed tightly with a fireproof powder and little ceramic collars are wedged in the ends of the tube,with the wire-terminals sticking out.
the powder absorbs atmospheric oisture (lots of it in a damp laundry/leaky machine)
machine is used, heater switches on, moisture is driven out to cooler ends where it condenses/achieves sufficient density to bridge centre conductor to earth (outer tube) the current needed is absolutely minute.
with a bit of luck, the moisture evaporates sufficiently with the residual heat, for a successful reset.
the lady with the iron ahd bought 3 new ones in less than a year.seldom-used electric ovens are also vulnerable.
Sometimes, trips are too clever for their own good….subsequently, it became commonplace to wire a house with a split-load supply, so these circuits could bypass the earth-leakage device.Re: Electrical problem with washing machine or not?
webmaster074 wrote:Guess it might be time to call the Candy engineer out before we call the electricial again
Probably a good idea as the machine would be under warranty and the visit from the engineer probably wouldn’t cost anything….
Might even pay to have an electrician attend at the same time as the engineer ??
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