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In uk.d-i-y, Philip wrote:
My problem is this - My iron trips the circuit breaker on the power side of
the House fuse board.

Which "circuit breaker" do you mean? Is it a circuit breaker just for
the single circuit with your sockets in it - one of say 6-10 similar-looking
a-bit-like-a-switch things in your consumer unit, marked (at a plausible
guess) "32A"? Or is it a wider breaker with a "test" button on it as well,
whose markings include "30mA" and maybe "80A" or "63A" which cuts power
to a number of circuits? Let us know: the former suggests an overloaded
or faulty single circuit, the latter a problem - or possibly a combination
of little 'problems' - with leakage to earth. Let us know, too, how soon
after plugging in the iron this happens - immediately? after a few
seconds or minutes? What happens if you plug the iron in on a different
circuit, e.g. the upstairs sockets (assuming they are on a separate
circuit)?

Stefek

My consumer unit has two sections lighting to the left, power to the
right. There are 3 or 4 lighting circuits and as you guessed 6 - 10
power circuits. To the right of the power circuits is a switch which
disables all the power circuits in one go.

It is that switch which trips and not the individual circuit breaker.
Consequently I loose power all over the house.

The lighting is not affected though.

The problem with this problem is that it is not repeatable at will.
Having reset the power we can resume ironing and the problem does not
recur maybe for days or weeks. But there is definately a problem
somewhere, and it always occurs when the iron is in use.

As a side issue the utility room contains a Washing Machine and Tumble
Drier, and in the past the conbination of these two in operation at
the same time has caused the power to be lost - but NOT house wide.
When they trip out it is only the circuit that goes ie one of the 6-10
little switches on the consumer unit.

I hope that helps

Phil