Take a look at the photos below and see what happened when this old cooker failed! Not only did it blow a hole my customers saucepan... but the Main Fuse blew too, and this goes to show just how much current was created during this malfunction. I am very pleased to announce that my customer escaped unharmed! However, it's important to have cookers and other appliances serviced or replaced if you have any concerns.
In this instance the cooker had reached it's "sell-by-date". I was called by this homeowner as she had no electricity in her home for 2 days after one of the cooker rings malfunctioned, she's tried getting an electrician via her 'Home Emergency' insurance, but they couldn't find anyone so instead she called her Local Electrician from Speller's Sparks, Richard Speller!
When I arrived she explained that she had no power and I expected to find the Consumer Unit, isolate the fault, and then get the power turned back on via her Consumer Unit Circuit Breakers... BUT, unfortunately, it was slightly more complicated than that!
Firstly, it wasn't fuse/circuit breaker, that was protecting the cooker circuit that had blown it was the Main Fuse as mentioned, and so I couldn't switch it back on that way. The Main Cut Out, which houses the main fuse belongs to the DNO (District Network Operator), in our case, that's Radstock, Midsomer Norton and the surrounding areas, is National Grid.
When the cooker malfunctioned it threw out over 100A, this would have been needed to blow that fuse!! For instance, in most cases any fault current passes through this fuse and blows the Circuit Breaker instead! 100A, I have to say, is easily enough to kill a human (1 amp is enough!), although there are lots of other considerations that lead to an electric shock being lethal, watch the video below to learn a little more:
You can see that the power of this current blew a hole in this tough sauce pan, and we're not made of a solid metal!! Any of you will know that this is no easy feat and only a huge amount of electrical power could have caused this!!
If you have any concerns about the safety of your own electrical installation, or any appliances, then you can do no worse that download my free 'Electrical Safety in the Home' DIY Guide!! You can visit my website and download yours there!
Or, you can download this via the form below... if you have any questions or concerns about what was raised in this blog post please contact Rich via email at info@spellerssparks.co.uk
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