Main Box in Street Keeps Tripping

Adrian15 said:
We have no access to the box. We have to call Eskom to reset it themselves and that could take a few days for them to come out.
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ok so they have certainly come to the party now ..you now have a 6ka breaker .you may have had a 2.5 ka or a 5 ka .that means it will take longer to trip than a 5 ka .if it now trips ..........run .
 
Adrian15 said:
UPDATE

I've contracted an electrician to do fault finding and he suggested I just replace all the wiring in my house since it's not up to compliance. The job should be done by Saturday which should rule out my house as the fault.

I also installed a new DB board 5 months ago with a main breaker rated at 63A and an earth leakage also rated at 63A. My neighbours have their mains at 60A and their earth leakage significantly lower at 20A. I'm now thinking that my mains and earth leakage may be rated too high? The electrician suggest I leave the earth leakage as is and swap out the 63A mains for a 50A.

What do you guys think?
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I think get a 2nd opinion, before going ahead.

have another electrician come in and quote.

Did you not get a CoC when you bought the place?
 
Use a clamp meter. You can see the current flow in wire.

This will give you indication if the fault is inside or outside.

Not rocket sience. What is the main breaker rated at outside in street.

My box in the street is 70A
 
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HowTo said:
Use a clamp meter. You can see the current flow in wire.

This will give you indication if the fault is inside or outside.

Not rocket sience. What is the main breaker rated at outside in street.
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What if you see the flow as zero?
 
Adrian15 said:
UPDATE

I've contracted an electrician to do fault finding and he suggested I just replace all the wiring in my house since it's not up to compliance. The job should be done by Saturday which should rule out my house as the fault.

I also installed a new DB board 5 months ago with a main breaker rated at 63A and an earth leakage also rated at 63A. My neighbours have their mains at 60A and their earth leakage significantly lower at 20A. I'm now thinking that my mains and earth leakage may be rated too high? The electrician suggest I leave the earth leakage as is and swap out the 63A mains for a 50A.

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...
Highly unlikely you need to retire whole house . Ask him which law that is . I have done over 500 coc,s and we get that often . You match the breakers to cable size . No need to rewire house .
 
jambai said:
Highly unlikely you need to retire whole house . Ask him which law that is . I have done over 500 coc,s and we get that often . You match the breakers to cable size . No need to rewire house .
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How do you arrange a thumper?
 
Our complex was also without power on Friday night because of a tripped breaker in the street, City Power guys did not have a key for the local box, fortunately it turned out the trip was at the bigger box further down the street.

But they were driving a Quantum minibus, pretty they had a thumper in the back.
 
Had the same issue with my house, was the cable feed coming to my house, they eventually ran a "temporary" cable a few years ago and since then no issues
 
TheChamp said:
Our complex was also without power on Friday night because of a tripped breaker in the street, City Power guys did not have a key for the local box, fortunately it turned out the trip was at the bigger box further down the street.

But they were driving a Quantum minibus, pretty they had a thumper in the back.
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Thank goodness you didn't have to deal with eskom.
 
WesleyDB said:
Had the same issue with my house, was the cable feed coming to my house, they eventually ran a "temporary" cable a few years ago and since then no issues
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The normal procedure is that the thumper tells you where the cable is damaged. They then dig down to that section and patch it like new and then fill the hole. Problem solved.
 
wingnut771 said:
Thank goodness you didn't have to deal with eskom.
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My experience with both indicates they are the same. I reported the fault around 8pm, there are guys who work overtime so it shouldn't be a problem, or so I thought. A couple of minutes later the fault was allocated to a tech, I thought to myself, Ahh, that is good service.

Guy sits with the fault for about 3 to 4 hours then he dumps it. I remains unallocated like that for another couple of hours then it's finally allocated to guy who came to fix it in the morning, who just happens to have no keys for the box.

So guys clock ridiculous amounts of overtime without actually doing anything and it seems there are no consequences since it's not the first City Power fault to be handled like this, same thing happens with Eskom back home.
 
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