Thoughts on overloaded radial?

[Pete999]

It is the best way unfortunately for the OP he has now put the onus upon himself by altering it to make it live again.

Which is why I suggested he go back and disconnect!!!! or at the least make safe, don't you think? probably not.

 

[Midwest]

I think in fairness to @JohnS888, he has tried to rectify a fault on an RFC by disconnecting the offending leg, reducing the size of the ocpd on the existing leg. Thats all good so far. What I can't understand exactly, is how there are no cpc's at the sockets?

As far as the appliances 'loosing power', I'm not quite sure what the landlord means by this. If @JohnS888 acknowledges he's dropped a bit of a clanger (every day is a school day), 'we' might be able to advise in a more helpful way.

 

[Baddegg]

OP....I think if you contact the client and explain the situation and tell em you’ll be round sharpish to sort it (it really is your problem now) I’m sure any sane person would take your advise and not use or even switch of the circuit breaker......and if you can do this in writing (text/email) as well all the better, live and learn mate just get back sharpish and sort it and then chalk it up and move on ?

 

[TJ Anderson]

Hi OP. The 0.05M/Ohm between L&N won't be the cause of your RCD tripping mate. Are you 100% sure you disconnected all the loads? Did you do any other tests?

 

[davesparks]

Go there yourself, disconnect all the RFC conductors at the CU and lock off the CB that was feeding the RFC asking your customer to switch it off is hardly a professional approach, It's your neck on the line mate, make sure 100% all RFC conductors are ditched from the CU.

Disconnecting the circuit until it is repaired properly is the best course of action yes, however it relies on the landlord and tenant giving permission for this to happen.

If the OP was to go to the property and disconnect the circuit without permission then they could be guilty of other offences.

As it is a rented property they cannot make an alteration to the installation without the landlord's permission and they cannot enter the property without the tenant's permission.
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Got call out yesterday for a ring circuit that kept tripping rcd. I identified the faulty cable which had low 0.05 IR reading L to N. I followed this to where next point should be but on opening circuit found only one cable...not good. On closer inspection of sockets I found that most of them had c.p.c's cut out. I can only imagine previous spark had thought this good idea as a previous earth fault had been tripping rcd.

. What has surprised me is landlord has phoned me since and rather than mcb tripping what's happening is when the various appliances are on other appliances lose power. Ie washine machine on and boiler stops working, cooker on washine machine stops working. Why would this be the case rather than mcb trip out? Thanks

Assuming that is supposed to be 0.05megohms L-N then that will be passing a current of around 5mA.
So there's two problems with suggesting that this is responsible for the RCD tripping, it's not enough current to trip an RCD and RCDs don't operate on L-N faults.

I doubt that it was an electrician who disconnected the CPCs, it is more likely a diyer. It could be the tenant or landlord attempting to solve a problem themselves.

If this loss of power was not happening before you worked in the circuit then it is likely that it is caused by something you have done, this could indicate a high resistance joint somewhere.
A possibke cause of this is incorrect fitting of the MCB so that the busbar prong is behind the moving part of the terminal and not clamped within it.