DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

Dear Users,

I have just had my kitcgen and the front of the house extended and have had new wiring done for it. Now thw electrician replaced the old electric board and put in the new one and to that he connected the wiring of the new extended and the old part of the house. the house was built in 1960 and so the wiring in the old house is outdated but is by no means with any major defects.

however the new electric board keeps tripping and the electrician who has done the work for me says that it is most likely to do with the wiring in the old part of the house. so he proposes to rewire the old part of the house. Now I am not keen on this proposition due tot he amount of expense it will incurr and the work involved.

Therefore i was wondering if we are legally required to rewire the old part of the house and have it connected in the new electric board, so that we can fix the tripping? Or can we put in a consumer unit or something that will separate the electrics of the old part of the house and the electrics of the new part of the house can be connected into the new electric board?

Please any advice on the matter will be greatley appreciated. Thank you.

SONNY69UK
YOUR ELECTRICIAN would have assessed the condition of
the existing wiring , and being possibly nearly 50 year old
it probaly needs replacing.
A periodic inspection would confirm if this wiring needs
replacing .


BLAKEY1963

this is always a possibility with a new board because they can pick up a pre-exisiting fault which was not apparent on your old board because they work in different ways.
If the wiring is very old a rewire may be in order, however, as a short term fix if you can isolate the circuit causing the problem (switch off all the circuits on the problem RCD, then switch them on one at a time and see which trips the RCD) then it may only be that circuit that needs attention. Also there may be nothing wrong with the circuit. If it's a socket circuit then it may be an appliance fault.

good advice from Moggy it is exactly what I would have said,
regards Sparx

thanks sparx :wink:

[quote="sonny69uk"]Dear Users,

I have just had my kitcgen and the front of the house extended and have had new wiring done for it. Now thw electrician replaced the old electric board and put in the new one and to that he connected the wiring of the new extended and the old part of the house. the house was built in 1960 and so the wiring in the old house is outdated but is by no means with any major defects.

however the new electric board keeps tripping and the electrician who has done the work for me says that it is most likely to do with the wiring in the old part of the house. so he proposes to rewire the old part of the house. Now I am not keen on this proposition due tot he amount of expense it will incurr and the work involved.

on average your wiring should be replaced approx: every 25 years.....how you have not got /had problems with your wiring after almost 50 years (since 1960 s) is beyond me......assuming off course that you have not had a rewire since the house was built ( you never said..)..

in my opinion, you would have been wise to have had ALL the property fully rewired at the same time......otherwise you will find , eventually that it was a false economy, by not getting it all done together...
your electrician was perfectly right to have installed an up to date board following a partial rewire......however that is clearly tantamount to putting on new clothing without actually changing ones underwear
first........ ok in one sense..but wrong in another.......

Therefore i was wondering if we are legally required to rewire the old part of the house and have it connected in the new electric board, so that we can fix the tripping? Or can we put in a consumer unit or something that will separate the electrics of the old part of the house and the electrics of the new part of the house can be connected into the new electric board?

Please any advice on the matter will be greatley appreciated. Thank you.[/quote]

This is not a necessarily the answer, but its a 90% chance that its something plugged in. IE: 1 of your appliances.
The ones that cause the most problems with tripping is anything water related. IE: washing machines, kettles, immersion heaters & even ovens.
Worth noticing the time when it happens as thing like central heating coming on can also be another reason for tripping.