What could cause a fuse to trip?

[isitapipedream]

Posting for traffic! Not long been homeowners and we’ve had a fuse trip. The switch is for downstairs sockets yet the oven and tumble dryer stayed on- it seemed the lights went out in the kitchen as well as everything in the living room. Does anyone know what might cause this and is it a cause for concern or can these things be random? Sorry if it seems an obvious question - we all have to learn at some point

Could be many reasons. Faulty light bulb, kettle, toaster, anything that came on at the exact moment the fuse tripped.

Faulty appliance or an overloaded circuit. Is it an old house? You can get an electrician to tell you what are on which circuits and therefore what’s likely to overload. Splitting the circuit is possible.

It’s generally the kettle or the toaster.
Best way to find out is to unplug everything from the circuit and then go round connecting and unconnected everything individually until you find the culprit.
The last time this happened to us it was the oven. The fan had become stuck and after a few minutes it blew the trip. It’s a high voltage item so it blew both its own fuse and the main fused.
Our other regular offender is the Dualit toaster. it always happens after Hot cross bun season. The fruit gets stuck in the heating element and shorts the current (😂).
The first time it happened I thought that the toaster was done for but after reading the instructions to see if I could have it repaired I just cleaned it out and it’s been fine.

Kettles are another common cause along with steam irons. We have had the odd light bulb do it and until you test them all you can’t tell.

If when you switch everything off and disconnect but the trip still goes then you need an electrician. Mice and rats can cause short circuits if they have chewed through cables and electrocuted themselves.
Water leaks inside walls are another cause.

Hopefully it’s just a toaster full of crumbs or a dead kettle.

1950s build but rewired several years ago.

Twice this has happened in our house and both times it was the toaster. We seem to get through a lot of toasters in this house.

Neither kettle or toaster were in use at the time but the kettle was plugged in and probs used 45 mins prior. We just flicked the switch and everything’s come back on. Should I test the kettle to see if it works? It’s an old one tbh

Your oven is on its own circuit as it is higher voltage. They may have put big appliances on their own circuit too, it’s recommended that tumble dryers are connected to their own circuit.

Weirdly we weren’t using anything at the time

Did it turn on again ok?

if so, I would probably ignore it.

They are tripped by current being too high, and that is normally due to a short circuit somewhere.

Unless it happens repeatedly, it is not a cause for concern as it is doing its job keeping you safe. If it does happen again, try to unplug things one by one to try to isolate it. If that doesn’t work, time for an electrician.

Yeah just test different things and see if they trip it.

When it happened to us it was a faulty socket. An electrician will test them for you.

Could have been a power surge when you switched on a light. Make sure you have torches ready in case it starts to fault regularly.
The other thing is to check your boiler. If you had just entered the house the drop in temperature may have triggered the heating to come on.
If it’s an old boiler it may need checking for electrical faults.
Our boiler died a couple of weeks ago and we had a week without heating or hot water. Not for the faint hearted.

Yeah it did. Someone on the next street has had a total powercut lasting a few mins. Seems a coincidence!

Turn everything off at the fuse box. Get something with a plug on it ie table lamp. Power up all sockets only and try each one with the lamp, every one of them including doing it twice on double sockets that’s a good start

@isitapipedream ,

The mains supply does sometimes have surges, so it might not be a coincidence.

Was it a normal trip switch or a ‘regional’ residual current device (RCD). Normally fuse boxes are labelled so you can see. They can have subtly different causes.

But, unless it happens again, you can safely ignore it!

Not in our house! All kitchen appliances are on the same circuit as each other.

Could just be a power surge then if you're sure nothing was being used

Unless you have a gas oven then your electric oven has to be on its own circuit and circuit breaker. It would be illegal for it to be on the ring circuit.

Is it the fuse or tripswitch that is being triggered? In my case I had a counter top oven and the main oven running the same time. They worked off the same loop? and triggered the trip switch.

The dishwasher also sent the tripswitch off recently. It had been on and off faulty though over a few days.

The iron also set it off.

Look at anything that creates heat would be my advice.

There is a lot of confusion about ovens and voltages on here!

Firstly, the domestic voltage has a RMS value of 230V. That comes down from the substation and no appliance without a transformer can use a higher voltage. To the best of my knowledge, domestic transformers are step down, so you can’t use more than 230v.

Fuses depend on current and the ring main is fused at 13v, so you can’t draw more than about 3kW of power. A small oven with less than 3kW can safely and legally be plugged in normally. Most ovens, however, are fused individually at either 16A or 32A depending on whether they are single or double.

Have you got any Halogen light bulbs - they were forever tripping our trip switches when they were about to blow!

It’s duel fuel and of course it’s not illegal. It completely depends on the appliance’s rating and the maximum current of the circuit.

Does anyone think it’s likely that the nearby power outage was responsible? It seems too much of a coincidence to be unrelated but why it only tripped the downstairs socket I dunno?

If it keeps happening, get it checked otherwise I really wouldn’t worry. It could be anything from a loose wire @ the back of a socket to a ground fault somewhere.

What would cause it as a one off? Do you think a nearby power cut might’ve been responsible? (Lots of houses had one around the same time but our estate didn’t, the one next did though)