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DarkKnight DarkKnight is offline
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Default Help! Cracling noise (and flickering light) on Cooker Switch

Hi,

- I'm no sparkie expert, but could do with some troubleshooting advice
-

I've had a Brittania cooker installed for over 2 years now. It's a
dual-fuel cooker with the Electrics supplying gas ignition and two
cookers (one has a fan in it).

The cooker is wired as follows :

Fuse Box Dedicated RCD - Cooker Switch - Extension Cable - Sealed
Junction Box - Original Cooker Wire - Cooker

All cables with use a 40A cable and is more than ample for the power
draw of the cooker.

Recently my wife has been telling me the switch has been making a
crackling noise. We tend to turn off the cooker at night using the
cooker switch, so upon switch on (along with engaging the cooker) it
makes this noise.

To be honest, I avoded looking into the problem, but today we smelt a
very strong burning smell. So I opened up the Cooker switch and took a
look behind it. It looks like the Blue Supply cable has become fried
i.e. the last 2cm of it looks burnt and singed. I thought it may have
been a general connection problem , so I trimmed off the singed bit
and reconnected it again.

Although there was no smoke this time around, a lighter crackling
noise could be heard and the cooker light switch was flickering
feintly.

I also tested it by removing the Load connection (i.e. disconecting
the cooker). If this is done, then there is no crackling or flickering
cooker light.

I'm just trying to figure out the point of failure... What could cause
this ? By making this last test (of disconnecting the cooker, and the
switch is not crackling) does this tell me that my fuse box and cable
supply is fine ? Does this imply that anything to the right of my
cooker switch diagram could be faulty ?

I'd be happy to purchase a multi-meter to help narrow down the
problem. I just need to know if I should pay out the call out fee to
have my cooker looked at, or whether I should call a sparkie.

I'd rather do the elimination work myself. Any advice would be
appreciated.


Thanks