Cooker hob electrics problem..

[RiffRaff]

Normal layout : 4 ceramic "rings", 4 controls. Hadn't been used for 12 hours plus, so stone cold.

Without warning, with nobody anywhere near the unit, an enormous noise - not dissimilar to a transformer - from the kitchen. The TV in the other room gets zapped, but instantly "reboots".

Back in the kitchen, a wisp of smoke from one of the hob controls. The neon on the cooker wallswitch is now out.

Checked the (old bridge style) fuse box.....30amp wire blown.

Replaced it, and flicked the cooker wallswitch on....Didn't even get the chance to get to the hob controls....Bit more smoke, so wallswitch off again.....

 

Wallswitch fault?

The big worry is that we might not have been in the house at the time.....

[PeteMorris]

I'm not a 'sparky' but if a 30 amp fuse has blown twice! Get an electrician in...Pronto!

[Obelix]

I can't see you have any need to worry - the fuse after all did it's job perfectly. An MCB consumer unit would be a better thing to fit but if there is a fault and the fuse blows fast it's perfectly fine.

 

Why is it blowing? Well if it's going as fast as you say there is a large fault current and that generally means that there is a short. Either a wire has chafed through and is shorting to ground, or ones come adrift and has shorted out. To find it though unless you have your own kit (in which case you probably wouldn't be asking) you will want a sparky. The smoke from the cooker knob though is probably a bit of a giveway however...:-) I'd suspect that a wire has fallen off somewhere inside and that fault current has fried the knob switch - it wont actually be the switch that failed.

 

Just pull the blown fuse holder from the fusebox, close that up and shut off the cooker box and you'll be fine until one can call round.