I had a desparate phone call from my son in Kuala Lumpur, Malasia.

The main isolator in his consumer unit had tripped, he had no power
and there was funny smell coming from the unit.

With no airconditioning in his 5 bed apartment the temperature was
becoming unbearable.

He had called an electrician but nobody could come and fix the problem
for at least 6 hours.

I told him to try remaking the breaker but it just tripped again and
more smell.

The Malasian electrical wiring system is identical to the UK by the
way.

Anyway the electrician eventually arrived and fixed the problem.

Can anyone guess what the problem was? Very unusual but no prizes.

I will tell you tomorrow.

chudford wrote:

Anyway the electrician eventually arrived and fixed the problem.

Can anyone guess what the problem was? Very unusual but no prizes.

I will tell you tomorrow.

Rat? Snake? Giant spider?

chudford wrote:

I had a desparate phone call from my son in Kuala Lumpur, Malasia.

The main isolator in his consumer unit had tripped, he had no power
and there was funny smell coming from the unit.

The main isolator was presumably not just a switch then, and was a RCD
or similar...?

Anyway the electrician eventually arrived and fixed the problem.

Can anyone guess what the problem was? Very unusual but no prizes.

The smell would presumably be the clue. If it was a fishy /urine type
smell then it would indicate a loose connection or other high resistance
joint that was heating and causing the thermosetting plastic (probably
urea formaldehyde) to breakdown and smell.

Alternatively it was something that had crawled into the CU and decided
to exit this world as a part of a circuit forming significant earth
leakage - frazzeled iguana anyone?

--
Cheers,

John.

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"chudford" wrote in message
...
I had a desparate phone call from my son in Kuala Lumpur, Malasia.

The main isolator in his consumer unit had tripped, he had no power
and there was funny smell coming from the unit.

With no airconditioning in his 5 bed apartment the temperature was
becoming unbearable.

He had called an electrician but nobody could come and fix the problem
for at least 6 hours.

I told him to try remaking the breaker but it just tripped again and
more smell.

The Malasian electrical wiring system is identical to the UK by the
way.

Anyway the electrician eventually arrived and fixed the problem.

Can anyone guess what the problem was? Very unusual but no prizes.

I will tell you tomorrow.

He lives next door to a prison where they execute people in an electric
chair. They couldn't get enough juice for the process so decided to 'borrow'
some of your son's. The smell, burning flesh of course.
Do I win a prize?

"chudford" wrote in message
...
I had a desparate phone call from my son in Kuala Lumpur, Malasia.

The main isolator in his consumer unit had tripped, he had no power
and there was funny smell coming from the unit.

With no airconditioning in his 5 bed apartment the temperature was
becoming unbearable.

He had called an electrician but nobody could come and fix the problem
for at least 6 hours.

I told him to try remaking the breaker but it just tripped again and
more smell.

The Malasian electrical wiring system is identical to the UK by the
way.

Anyway the electrician eventually arrived and fixed the problem.

Can anyone guess what the problem was? Very unusual but no prizes.

I will tell you tomorrow.

Clearly an ex-animal in the CU (otherwise not worth posting probably ) ).

Hmm, my bid is a snake of some sort.


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

On 4 Mar, 10:44, chudford wrote:
I had a desparate phone call from my son in Kuala Lumpur, Malasia.

The main isolator in his consumer unit had tripped, he had no power
and there was *funny smell coming from the unit.

With no airconditioning in his 5 bed apartment the temperature was
becoming unbearable.

He had called an electrician but nobody could come and fix the problem
for at least 6 hours.

I told him to try remaking the breaker but it just tripped again and
more smell.

The Malasian electrical wiring system is identical to the UK by the
way.

Anyway the electrician eventually arrived and fixed the problem.

Can anyone guess what the problem was? Very unusual but no prizes.

I will tell you tomorrow.

Yes you're right the electrician fished a slightly cooked gecko (small
lizard) out of the innards of the consumer unit.

I'ts surprising that such a small thing can trip a 100A breaker.

In article ,
chudford writes:
Yes you're right the electrician fished a slightly cooked gecko (small
lizard) out of the innards of the consumer unit.
I'ts surprising that such a small thing can trip a 100A breaker.

It probably tripped a 30mA or 100mA RCD.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

chudford wrote:

Yes you're right the electrician fished a slightly cooked gecko (small
lizard) out of the innards of the consumer unit.

So I was close with iguana then ;-)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/