For a few days my wife has been complaining about an intermittent strange smell in the garage, to which I was oblivious, and I couldn’t find any cause.
Until yesterday, when I happened to touch the tableau that feeds the heat pump and it was warm to the touch. It turned out that one of the live tails was loose and the smell was the cable insulation and chocolate block melting.
It’s now sorted and I’ve gone through and checked every connection in the house (again) but I’m now convinced that the post-COVID lack of sense of smell is going to be the death of me, whether by not smelling smoke or eating something that’s off.
I had a similar issue a couple of years after buying our current house. A slight burning whiff from the tableau occasionally. I couldn’t pin it down until one day a bank of socket stopped working. I turned all the power off, removed the front cover from the utility cupboard (it took some removal as it was nailed and screwed in place with just two square cupboard holes for minimal access). I then found the appropriate circuit and pulled on the live wire going down through a gaine and about 15 cm of red wire came out with some insulation tape attached. After cutting back the gaine I discovered the other side of the cable. The house was only 8 years old and whoever laid that cable had cut it too short and just cut a short length of cable and used a piece of insulation tape to but the two pieces of cable together. They hadn’t used any sort of connector or even simply twisted the two cables together (which would also have been dangerous ). Just butted together side by side. I was really shocked (pun not intended) that an electrician could do something so dangerous when it could have so easily been done properly.
Hopefully it’s now rebuilt, allowing easy removal of the cover.
The famous normes insist that all covers to electrical connections must be locatable, accessible, & removable (& that includes humble junction boxes). Many times I’ve had to destroy someone’s carpentry &/or decor in order to gain access inside a tableau, or a plastered over junction box.
If that was attributable to a professional then they should be banished to the fiery void & forced to listen to Mull of Kintyre on endless repeat.
The thing is floor to ceiling and 80cm wide by 25cm deep so not really practicable to have the whole thing easily openable. There’s now a larger door in it for the tableau and a separate door for the solar stuff. The front is just screwed in place now so I can take it off if I really need to. I did so when fibre was installed.
Bumbling west on the M4 from central Lunnun toward Slough ['Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough’] in a Citroen Dyane, the g/f complained of a smell - ‘a hot sort of smell’. The g/f was always smelling something upsetting in whichever car.
After some minutes of this, as we were approaching Heston services I said I would pull in and investigate. I, of course, had smelled nothing amiss.
As we slowed to 20-25 mph on the slip road flames burst into her footwell …
The end result was a pile of twisted metal and a burn mark on a nearby lamp standard which took years to fade out.
In the early 2000s I was involved in manufacturing materials that required a drying step using an industrial dehumidifier. It came with a standard 3 pin plug and all was well for the first year or so. However during one run late afternoon we began to smell hot insulation while using it (the device also produced a smell that made detection harder) and eventually traced it to the plug. Trying to pull it from the socket left a glowing pin behind in the wall and a melted plug.
It was drawing a continuous 3+kW and when the wires were tight in their connectors then all was well, but over time with thermal expansion they would loosen off and then resistance would increase along with heating. We solved it with a ‘commando’ wall box and plug, but eventually had to go back to a 3 pin socket. I would check for tightness each time to prevent recurrence. AFAIK the dehumidifier is still doing sterling service for another company.
Europe no longer has ELCBs. They have been superseded by Residual Current Devices (RCD, or Interrupteur Différentiel in France).
True for an ELCB, but as I’ve just said we no longer use them in Europe.
An RCD/ID measures current between live & neutral & if an imbalance exceeds the designed limit (30mA for most end user circuits) it will trip off. As a device it has no need to have an earth connection to work.
Honestly you should never have a thermal issue unless there is an actual problem. Far better to get everything checked and replaced by a qualified electrician. Old French electrical systems are just an accident waiting to happen. I know three families who have had fires recently.
On the subject of electrics, could I just make a small diversion Apart from the dodgy extension that was done to accommodate a few extra disjuncteurs I need to replace the DJ that was/is in place for my VMC. I renewed the latter equipment. I’ve been searching for either a used or a new replacement for the F&G breaker. It’s 16A and I want a 2A device. It has to be the right size and must accommodate the busbars with live on lhs and nearer the front. Not possible to buy a new F&G unless I can find NOS. Anyone know what else fits or where I can find a F&G? When we have a heatpump the DJs etc will be sorted out but for now I want to have correct fusing for the VMC.
The lack of standardisation drives me nuts! Those opposite handed DJs are very annoying, & I’m not sure who would stock them. They do/did tend to be found in cheap ready populated boards that might be found in the brico sheds, but you don’t want to buy a whole board, & most probably don’t have 2A ones in them anyway.
Even if you find a DJ with phase on the left there’s no guarantee that the spacing back to front will be the same as the existing ones.
As a workaround that is fully compliant (but overkill) you could take a 10mm² tail from the source that feeds the peignes (this may be difficult to achieve) to a separate 2A DJ.
Alternatively you could tag off from the top of another DJ that is fed by the peignes (as has already been done in your picture) with a bit of 1,5mm², direct to a 2A DJ. As long as you don’t cascade on from the top of the 2A the unprotected bit of 1,5mm² cannot be overloaded. However, only do this as a temporary fix until you replace the board when sorting out your heat pump installation.
she is your personal alarm system !!
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Apart from the dodgy extension that was done to accommodate a few extra disjuncteurs I need to replace the DJ that was/is in place for my VMC. I renewed the latter equipment. I’ve been searching for either a used or a new replacement for the F&G breaker. It’s 16A and I want a 2A device. It has to be the right size and must accommodate the busbars with live on lhs and nearer the front. Not possible to buy a new F&G unless I can find NOS. Anyone know what else fits or where I can find a F&G? When we have a heatpump the DJs etc will be sorted out but for now I want to have correct fusing for the VMC.