Many of us have experienced the frustration of a tripped circuit. Next time it happens to you, before you jump on the phone to your local electrician, take a breath and follow these steps and see if the issue can be resolved without an electrician call-out fee. Here are the three reasons your circuit may be tripping and how to determine why it is;
- Overloading
Firstly, see if it was a one-off. Try flipping the safety switch back on at the switchboard and see if the same issue happens again. Often, when you are able to reset the switch, it is likely to be a circuit overload, which is not surprising considering our reliance on more and more electrical appliances these days. Whenever you place too much demand on the circuit it will switch off due to overloading. In this instance, you might need additional circuits to accommodate your extra usage requirements.
If your safety switch continues to stay tripped off, it’s an earth-leakage fault on either an appliance or the circuit.
- Faulty Appliance
There could be a fault in one of the appliances plugged into the circuit. In this instance, you’ll need to go through a process of elimination. Unplug one appliance at a time and see if you can switch the safety switch back on to see which appliance is causing the circuit to trip. (This is sometimes best done with one person at the switchboard, and one person in the house unplugging each appliance one at a time).
- Circuit/ Switchboard Fault
If you have gone through the troubleshooting process above without success, you will need a licensed local electrician to fix the issue as the fault is on the circuit.
Hornsby Electric are truly local electricians who have been servicing the area for more than 50 years. They have a team of talented electricians who specialise in fault-finding. And all our work is covered by our 100% lifetime guarantee, so you have absolute peace of mind.