Electrical Genius needed

[hard2miss]

This problem has foxed two professional electricians so far, but knowing that the Sheffieldforum is full of electrical geniuses, perhaps they can come up with a solution. Here goes....

 

I have a built in side by side fridge and freezer. They are plugged in to a double socket.

 

All was well until I defrosted the freezer. When I turned it back on it tripped out the main kitchen fuse, taking out the fridge, freezer, microwave, kettle etc. Having checked/changed the fuses, and turned it on at the mains, tried it again (a couple of times) with the same result.

 

(Now here's the interesting bit) We plugged the freezer into an extention and plugged it into the living room circuit and it worked perfectly. Also tested original plug socket by plugging fridge into it and it's working perfectly except when freezer is plugged in.

 

Electrician number one said freezer must be putting extra strain on the system as it tries to lower the temperature to freezing again, and that when it reached that temperature it should be OK. So we left it on overnight and when we got up it had frozen the turkey solid.

 

However once again when we plugged it back into the original socket it tripped the mains again.

 

Enter electrician number two. He said he thought the socket must be to blame and put in a new socket. Thought he'd fixed it, it worked for thirty seconds, then blew again. He undid front of freezer to look at switch mechanism and said it was wet (with defrosting it,) He dried it with paper towels and hairdryer, but it went again. He said it must still be wet at the back, so we've been drying it out with a fan heater for 24 hours.

 

Put it back together and plugged it in to original socket and it's tripped the kitchen out again.

 

Freezer is now plugged into dining room and working fine, but we have extention wires trailing from kitchen to dining room which is an accident waiting to happen.

 

Both electricians said they'd never come across anything like it before.

Do any of you electrical geniuses know what it might be?

Ill give you the answer because it happened to me (if you have under counter plug sockets at the back of it)

 

I had the same problem, could not work it out why it was knocking off my kitchen ring... it turned out that I had sockets at the back and due to some condensation it was tripping it out although I could not even see where it was damp !

 

I only worked it out because like you I tryed it in extentions and it worked ok.

 

Anyhow I came to the conclusion that it was either down to my dryer giving off condensation from the back or that a leak upstairs was making its way down the wiring within the wall.

 

I dryed everything over a few days, plugged it in, and touch parts of a tree and it has been ok ever since.

 

Feel the wall around the plug for damp, then look above if you have a bathroom to see if anything could have come down the inner wall or from the floor.

[selphie]

:mad:My dishwasher is doing this now!

[ChrisT70]

thinking about the actual original post i'd bet good money that when the freezer was defrosted and the lid/door left open the wiring/compressor and any electronics within the freezer all got damper than usual, hence the increase in earth leakage current. a mention was made of an electrician attempting to wipe out the socket as it was damp etc. its that dampness thats taken out the rcd. the freezer could still work fine if the machine was dried through with a hot air dryer/heat gun carefully used. once its back running it would probably be ok again.

the rcd might be borderline anyway and may need replacing now, a quick test of the earth leakage current on the machine and a tripping test on the rcd /replacement if needed would prove it.

plugging the freezer into a different outlet with an extension lead (probably on a different protective device as well) and plugging other devices into the original socket has merely confused the issue, none of that would change the original issue with it being damp/tracking within the freezer wiring creating an increased leakage current.

hopefully they have got it sorted by now.