Electric power tripping

When it rains heavily our electricity trips, but usually comes back on when the trip switch is re set. We asked an electrician recently if this problem could be resolved but he reckons it would be very difficult to find the cause. With all the rain it has tripped again and this time it's not resetting. So our house is without power all day. We are hoping when things dry up a bit it will be possible to get the power back on...! Unfortunately - or fortunately - we are not there at present and a good neighbour is looking after things.
Can anyone recommend an electrician or maybe an engineer who could solve this recurring problem? Many thanks

Do you have any outdoor lights? I had a similar problem during heavy rain, and it turned out to be an outdoor lantern filling up because the drain hole was blocked.

Agree. Electricity and water don't get along. I would be inclined to switch off every circuit breaker that supplies power to anything associated with the outside of your building. You might find that the mains will stay on after that.
I know that's easier said than done as I know that Spanish properties tend to get added on lights and sockets over the years that are on the same circuit as your kitchen etc. so turning them off would probably affect your fridge freezer. If all your circuits are marked up correctly in your consumer unit, then you could make that decision and narrow it down somewhat.
Outside wiring is always the first port of call in the rain.

Thanks so much for the advice guys. That makes sense. We have 2 outdoor lights which were add-ons at some stage and will get them checked.

Spanish wiring is a nightmare......they dont even appear to have invented ring mains.

The ring main is a very British thing, and most electricians will tell you that it’s not actually a very safe solution.
A break in one segment of the ring main, or a bad connection at the back of one of the sockets, can easily result in the sockets still working, but the rated current of the wiring being exceeded (because the load isn’t balancing across both sides of the ring). As the user won’t be aware of this problem, because all the sockets still work, this problem will be undetected but can result in a fire caused by the wiring overheating.

The ring main was supposedly invented to deal with copper shortages after the war, but that’s a bit before my time.

I’ve also seen situations where a consumer unit has been converted from a single RCD to multiple RCD, but one leg of the ring has been put into one circuit, and the other into the second circuit. This should be picked-up when the electrician does this commissioning checks, but that doesn’t always happen.

So, radial systems are actually better, but it all depends on the implementation.

Pete.

Black wrote:Do you have any outdoor lights? I had a similar problem during heavy rain, and it turned out to be an outdoor lantern filling up because the drain hole was blocked.

Exactly why my reset wouldn’t work yesterday am. Outside lights were like goldfish bowls.

In UK on ring main you can legally add a spur to a socket.
But not a spur to a spur. On spanish radial system can you add spur to a spur, e.g run two socket extensions from one socket?
Thanks for any information.

The smart meter (where you would get your readings) has a reset button. I had problems with that at a previous house where I had to switch off the main power to the house then press a button on the smart meter to reset

earlybay wrote:In UK on ring main you can legally add a spur to a socket.
But not a spur to a spur. On spanish radial system can you add spur to a spur, e.g run two socket extensions from one socket?
Thanks for any information.

I’m not sure I fully understand the question. Your referee to ‘socket extensions’ makes me wonder if you’re talking about daisy-chaining plug-in extension leads, or whether you’re meaning hard-wired installation of additional sockets.

In the UK, anyone who is Part P qualified or better can install and certify a spur.

In Spain, the radial system is in effect daisy-chained spurs. I’m not sufficiently equal fait with the Spanish regs to know if there are limitations on the number of sockets per spur, but obviously the wiring needs to be able to accommodate the additional load.
The wiring would need to be signed-off by a suitably qualified electrician for it to be legal.

Pete.