Lamps and cooker "burning", what could it be?

daigo75

fishdog wrote: »

I thought they might alright!

How did you arrange this?? Was it just by phoning them and describing the problem??

You may be looking at a new ESB traffo.

Good luck with it!!

Yes, I called them and described the "sequence of deaths". I underlined that my hob burned and this cannot be considered "normal". That was all.

fishdog

I would be interested to know how long it takes before the ESB responds, please let us know when they set up.

It might be worth getting one of them voltage / energy monitors and keeping an eye on the mains voltage, they are only about €14 http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

I think this would have little chance of working. This device does not draw a graph or store any historical information. This means you could be watching it for days on end without seeing a significant voltage fluctuation. It would seem from reading the OPs posts that tis problem only occured once over a period of a few weeks.

daigo75

fishdog wrote: »

I would be interested to know how long it takes before the ESB responds, please let us know when they set up.

I called ESB on monday, I've been told they would call me to make an appointment. Yesterday the technician called me and came out with "I'm in front of your home, but I guess you're not there." :rolleyes:

He'll come again today, hopefully I'll get some answers.

fishdog

Fair play to the ESB for being so quick to respond. It is good to see.

Keeks

daigo75 wrote: »

Thanks. I will ask the electrician to fit that protection, since the circuit seems to be quite old.

Just wondering if it is a new Cooker/Extractor?

If so, the new cooker might be of a higher wattage that the old one and so be drawing more current.

But generally this would cause the problem back at the fuse board and not the cooker.

But if it is a new cooker then it might just be wired up wrong

daigo75

The ESB technician and the electrician came yesterday. The former installed the recorder, spent some minutes looking at it and said the voltage is perfectly in range (235 V when he checked). He left the recorder plugged in, we'll check again in some days (this morning a saw a peak to almost 250V, but it seems "normal").

The electrician said there's nothing wrong in the house (though he just had a look at the main panel) and replaced the hob. He opened the old one and I noticed that the burned part is only the corner with the LEDs , the rest is "clean and untouched".

He said the old one burned down because of a short circuit, maybe caused by water, but I'm not convinced. Of course I use water when cooking, and sometimes it can happen that some spills on the hob, but I never had any issues with this in the past with other hobs. They are designed to deal with that, and they should be completely sealed... I'm afraid I won't get any more information about that.

So, at the moment I'm recording the voltage to see if ESB can tell me something more. I'll keep you up to date. Thanks.

fishdog

The electrician said there's nothing wrong in the house

I have not seen this house, but from what has been described and the more I think about it I think your electrician is correct.

though he just had a look at the main panel

This would be a good place to start because it is one of the few places inside your house that the cooker and lights have in common.

The former installed the recorder, spent some minutes looking at it and said the voltage is perfectly in range (235 V when he checked)

Give it time. As you pointed out the next morning you saw:

a peak to almost 250V

That is why the ESB want to have it installed for a few days.

He said the old one burned down because of a short circuit, maybe caused by water, but I'm not convinced

I would not think so myself. They are designed with cooking in mind!! This would not explain the lamps blowing either.

I'll keep you up to date

Thanks, I would be interested.

It is possible that you just had a faulty hob and a bad batch of bulbs too! Stranger things have happened!!

daigo75

Hi again, tomorrow the guy from ESB will take the recorder, which recorded nothing strange at all. There's been a peak to 250 V, but the technician told me it's in the tolerance. This, added to electrician's answer "everything is fine here" makes me believe that Matrix has been reprogrammed and there's really never been any issue, or simply that one of them (or both) are wrong and it will be difficult to spot the real issue without leaving the recorder plugged for some centuries. :rolleyes:

At the moment I replaced the fuse in the extractor fan (damn 5x20 mm, 1 Amp, impossible to find), replaced the bulbs, replaced the cooker and replaced the spotlights on the ceiling with a good standard CFL bulb. No issues since that cursed day, but I'll install a surge protector on the TV/DVD area anyway, just in case.

fishdog

Intermittent faults are always the hardest to find!

Perhaps you will not have another surge for weeks or with any luck never again. I cant think what your electrician could have done wrong to cause these things to happen.

Good luck with it.

davelerave

daigo75 wrote: »

Hi again, tomorrow the guy from ESB will take the recorder, which recorded nothing strange at all. There's been a peak to 250 V, but the technician told me it's in the tolerance. This, added to electrician's answer "everything is fine here" makes me believe that Matrix has been reprogrammed and there's really never been any issue, or simply that one of them (or both) are wrong and it will be difficult to spot the real issue without leaving the recorder plugged for some centuries. :rolleyes:

At the moment I replaced the fuse in the extractor fan (damn 5x20 mm, 1 Amp, impossible to find), replaced the bulbs, replaced the cooker and replaced the spotlights on the ceiling with a good standard CFL bulb. No issues since that cursed day, but I'll install a surge protector on the TV/DVD area anyway, just in case.

you should fit the surge diverter at the fusebox for protection although as already said they have to be maintained and they dont solve an underlying problem if there is one

daigo75

Thanks Dave,
I understand that I'm just "covering" eventual problems, but, since both the technicians gave an answer like "everything ok, just bad luck" I can't convince my landlord to install anything and I'm not allowed to do it myself. :rolleyes:

By the way, talking about bad luck (off topic, but kind of "funny"), this morning I got up to find out that I have no cold water in the two bathrooms. After some investigation I think there's something wrong with the tank in the attic (probably something stuck in it, I wonder who the hell got the idea to put an OPEN tank in the attic, so everything can fall in it, from spiders to dust to particles of insulation). I tried to walk to it and have a look, but I almost destroyed the floor/ceiling, it's just thin plasterboard (another "great" idea, we usually put FLOORING in the attic). Now I'm waiting for the plumber to check it out, maybe I'll post another topic about the "odissey".

Thank you all for the information and the support.

davelerave

Forgot youre a tenant no problem