Anyone with any electrical knowledge please!

[mummabubs]

Shamelessly posting in chat for traffic 😊

Basically DH was stripping some wallpaper today on the middle floor using a steamer and accidentally forgot to cover the plug socket at the bottom of the wall, which resulted in the whole house fusing a few minutes later.

Fast forward to this evening and we've had loads of fuse tripping. We've managed to get lights back on all three floors and power sockets back on the lower and upper floor, but when we turn the middle floor on at the fuse box it either trips straight away or works for anywhere from 1-20 minutes and then trips again. We've tried to air out the socket that got steamed but this doesn't seem to have fixed it so far.

Any advice please? (Apart from the obvious of refraining from steaming the plug sockets again in future!) Thanks 😊

Sounds like it has water trapped inside. Replace the socket? They're cheap and it isn't a difficult job.

I'd say that you have water (from the steam) somewhere in your electrics. Personally I'd leave it overnight to see if dries out and try again tomorrow. If the water has dried out and no tripping then no need to replace anything.

Leave it to dry out and see if that solves the problem, if not you're going to need an electrician.

Thanks all, will leave it to dry out a bit. DH just told me he'd found a mumsnet thread via Google of someone else in the same situation.... Without realising it was this thread and me posting about him 😂😂

So, DH has replaced the socket this morning and that still hasn't resolved it. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Any further pearls of wisdom please?

That's an odd one. Perhaps it's blown the earth when it shorted, it shouldn't do that though (certainly not if water caused the short).

I'd suggest admiting defeat and getting an electrician in, you'll likely need proper continuity and insulation resistance testing to identify the fault.

@c3pu

That's an odd one. Perhaps it's blown the earth when it shorted, it shouldn't do that though (certainly not if water caused the short).

I'd suggest admiting defeat and getting an electrician in, you'll likely need proper continuity and insulation resistance testing to identify the fault.

Thanks, I've contacted two electricians (against DH's wishes initially as he was still determined to fix it, but I think we have to admit this goes beyond our basic knowledge). Annoyingly one never got back to me and the other just said they'll "be out today" but I have no idea when 🤦🏻‍♀️ I suspect there's a lot of dodgy wiring and as there are some holes further up the wall I'm betting something has got wet inside the wall further up from the socket.

Looking for the silver lining here... If you're already decorating then at least you can sort the wiring without making a mess in a perfectly decorated room.