Beko DTLCE80121W tripping RCD

[Davemitch]

Hello there, I’m new. Came here after searching for my issue on the internet. I’m a retired telecoms engineer having done nearly 45 years fixing phones and systems so I pretty well understand electrical theory and can work my way round a multimeter, although I no longer have a decent Fluke one, and have a cheap one I bought on Amazon for a tenner!

My issue – we bought this condenser dryer earlier this year after our 8 year old White Knight built in vented dryer died. As we are vulnerable we bought the Beko quickly and put it in the garage. First time I plugged it in it tripped the main RCD. It trips the breaker regularly, usually when it’s plugged in and the socket switched on (we keep it unplugged for obvious reasons). It seemed to be better after a few months and hadn’t tripped the breaker for a long while and I was thinking that it had gone away. However this week, it has started again with a vengeance, twice on Sunday, (breaker reset and it worked ok long enough to dry a load) but today it tripped the breaker 3 times and I couldn’t get it to work at all and gave up.

in the spring I had the electrics tested and the electrician said the RCD was tripping slightly low and recommended changing the consumer unit to a RCBO one.

Today I got the multimeter out and tested between the live pin and the earth pin and read just over 8 megohms so I’m thinking that is the issue (I did the same test on our Bosch washing machine and got no reading live to earth.

My question is would this reading be enough to trip the breaker? I’m thinking that when it’s cold, something in the dryer causing this reading. Im guessing that Beko wouldn’t want to fix it as it’s caused by an alien environment (instructions say 5-35 degrees C). Maybe I will have to drag it into the house, let it warm up and dry out, and test again, or wait until the weather warms up, but now is when we want to use it!

thanks all!

[electrofix]

the rcd trips at 30Ma so you have to get down to under 10K to trip it

Dave

[Davemitch]

Thanks Dave,
I was wondering whether that amount of resistance would trip the breaker. The electrician did say we had the perfect storm, a little bit of leakage in the wiring, a bit from appliances, and a breaker that trips low. That’s why he recommended RCBO breakers to spread the leakage.

However this morning, with the dryer unplugged the washing machine tripped it on switch on, then when the program started to run. I unplugged the 4ways feeding our router and Powerline units in 3 places, the washing machine ran, the dryer ran a load. Then I puta second load in the washing machine the dryer finished but I left it switched on, and the breaker popped again. I finished the loads and power seems stable. It seems like it’s nuisance tripping.

I think that I’m going to have to go ahead with the consumer unit changed to get rid of the dodgy RCD – it is 27 years old, and various places say they don’t last forever I just don’t want to get it done in the depths of winter, the previous electrician said it would take all day.

thanks again!

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