All electricity gone in apartment, blue flash prior...

Ho hum...
Well, it happened again yesterday.

I turned on the lights, huge blue flash and a bang, and one of the lightbulbs blew out it's glass just above me.
It was a most unhappy start to the morning, got a huge fright.

The main external fuse to the apartment tripped again, as did the internal fuse for the lights.

The electrician could not find anything, everything in the fusebox was fine, and the light fitting was normal too.

He couldn't work out how the main external fuse could have tripped like this, but suggested that maybe it was 'too sensitive' (is that possible?)

Has anyone any suggestions , as I am none the wiser?
The bulb (halogen) shooting out it's glass was very impressive, and I'd like to avoid that happening again.




Nicola
 
[broken link removed]

This may be a possibility - not enough supply into the fuseboard can cause the main fuse to blow.
 
Thanks for replies, I hadn't thought of that as a solution Sconee. There hasn't been a problem for years, so this is relatively new event. Nothing has changed in the power demand from the apartment before this started happening.
I'm not sure that he's a bad electrician Sparkee.This just seems like an odd problem. I've asked various people about this, and no one has really come up with a solution. Colm suggested earlier it might be a wiring problem between my apartment & the main landlord board, which seems like a sensible suggestion.

The fuse isn't actually blowing, it's tripping, initially (I think) it seems to trip one (small) fuse in my board, then the main fuse outside trips, so it still seems like somehow the problem is starting in my place, then tripping the 80v fuse outside.

How would I go about investigating the connections between my flat, and the external (downstairs) fuse box?

Thanks again

Nicola, in puzzlement and slight anxiety! (about blue flashes!!)
 
I had a similar problem, system trip (no bulbs exploded or blue flashes) but we could get the lights on one circuit going. Electrician came out and as we had nothing new added on recently, said it must be a wiring issue. So he took off all the lights on that circuit & on the last one found a wire that had just slipped out.

Problem solved. However, I was lucky as the wire was visible - he said the next step would have been to consider rewiring all those lights as there could be a break along the wire....I was lucky & he onlY charged me €20+cup of coffee+kitkat!!
 
I'd happily give a whole box of KitKats if someone fixed this! Cheap at half the price

We even did a mice damage inspection, and nada. The light that exploded, all the wires were inspected, no heat damage, no damage to the cables. Maybe I should have gotten him to remove all the lights, given your experience (they're halogen ceiling spots though, so a bit of a pain, and the whole apartment is studded with them, must be 20ish)

Nicola
 
Colm, it sounds like you are an electrician!? Any chance you are located anywhere near NicolaM? Try a PM maybe? Sounds like a lot of kit-kats in it for you if you can sort it!
 
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