Electrical Help Required

Hi all,

We have a 20amp RCD circuit breaker installed in our consumer unit which keeps on tripping if we use 4 or 5 high usage devices eg air con, oven etc. Is there any way of changing this to a larger rated circuit beaker? If it can be changed does anyone know who can do it? It looks like the circuit breaker also has a tamper proof tag attached to it.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ian

Hi Ian

Contact James (JSE Electrical Services)on 673 576 441

He lives on site, Naranjos 3

Don

 This breaker is supplied by Iberdrola and governs your electric charge you can get an uprated one but your standing charge will increase.

We live on condado and only once have tripped the main breaker (the one thats sealed)_ if yours keeps tripping then you may have a problem with one or two of your appliances?

 You should have a 25 amp main isolating circuit breaker fitted to the left hand side of your consumer unit, labelled ICP, I have come accross a number of installations where these haven't been fitted, and the mains supply comes directly onto the RCD unit on the top left hand side, this can be rectified by fitting an ICP in the space allocated for it. I will gladly come and have a look for you [no charge] and access what you need to do.

 HI ian.m,

It´s normal you have those problems because your house is undepowered.

If you have a 20 amp circuit breaker the maximun power you can use is 20 amp x 230 V = 4.600 W. If you have Air con for all the house it will eat at list 4.000 W.  You can use only 600 W for the iron, microwave, fridge...

I recomend you to increase you ICP (Interruptor de Control de Potencia) to avoid this problems, but it will increase your bill in the concept called "término fijo", it´s not the consume concept, it´s other concept you pay for the maximun simultaneosly power you can consume.

ICP can be manipuled for Iberdrola, that´s the reason for the tamper proof. An authorized electricist can do but you must call iberdrola to verify and tamper again (with the aditional charge)

The cost to increase your ICP power depends of your Iberdrola tariff. For usually consumers it will be:

Most people have the 25 Amp tariff without problems but make your estimations because every change on the ICP will be charged by Iberdrola in you bill about 20 €/change, but I´m not sure ask for it.

Sorry for this boring lecture. I hope at least will be usefull.

Manuel Cerezo.  Visit my blog Under Construction