Hi, I'm electronically incompetent & have a question, which I hope you can help. My 3 year old washine machine trips the whole electrics of my flat during a particular cycle. Any idea why? How to fix it? How much it will cost? please. Any help gratefully received.

Not sure if this might be true or not but I'll offer an opinion for what it is worth.

I'm wondering whether this might be a problem with the heater element in the machine. They can get corroded, and in the past I have seen the outer skin of the element rust away, this leaves the element wire exposed. If that were to happen then there might be a chance that when the heater is switched on it dissipates some electricity to the water within the machine, obviously the machine is earthed, some energy goes to earth, and the end result is your RCD trips because of an imbalance in the currents flowing in the live and neutral.

As I say, don't take this as gospel - it could be a number of different things. But maybe you could check whether this problem occurs at the point in time when the heater kicks in.

You can probably physically disconnect the heater element fairly easily so that might give you a clue as to whether it is heater orientated.

NOTE: UNPLUG THE APPLIANCE BEFORE DIVING IN THE BACK! And be VERY careful poking about! There are big capacitors in the back of these machines and they hold a charge for hours after the machine is unplugged, if you shorted across one of these capacitors you could have huge instantaneous currents flowing.

If in doubt leave servicing to qualified appliance engineers.

HM

Yes I believe thats correct  

btw cold fill sucks  

It's possibly right Jerry, but if you want to be a muppet I'm sure we can oblige..Kermit!!!

I had the same problem once - turned out to be a split hose spraying a tiny amount of water onto the motor.

[quote author=glover  link=1111497761/0#0 date=1111497760]Hi, I'm electronically incompetent & have a question, which I hope you can help. My 3 year old washine machine trips the whole electrics of my flat during a particular cycle. Any idea why? How to fix it? How much it will cost? please. Any help gratefully received.   [/quote]

If "...machine trips the whole electrics of my flat...", it seems that it is not on the RCD side of a split load, could it be that it has nothing to do with the RCD?, unless the main switch in the CCU is an RCD ???, just wondring...could it be that the motor gets hot after a while and than mechanically (expending, bearings), gets 'hard points' and overloads?

[quote author=ban-all-sheds  link=1111497761/0#11 date=1112633285]Must be a main RCD - how else could a fault on an appliance on the end of a 13A plug take out the entire supply?. [/quote]
Funny that, I am asking the same question...
May be Craig could supply a bit more details, BAS, you might be right but having 30 years of trubbleshooting experience (not as electrician), I never take things forgranted, it is possible that there is no RCD in this CCU, it is possible that the WM is connected directly no fused plug etc... (sounds stupid, but I'm sure that in your experience as Sparky you have seen wors)

[quote author=L.Spark  link=1111497761/0#13 date=1112635196]But he's not a sparky, and thought we had come to the conclusion he had an RCD.. [/quote]
Sorry to be difficult (what's new...? ), but the RCD idea is an assunption, not a fact...(it could be correct or maybe not...), no one in these posts confirm that a RCD tripped.

[quote author=JerryD  link=1111497761/15#15 date=1112646420]

This was started on March 22nd, nearly 2 weeks ago, so where is 'craig'??  ??? [/quote]
Ibiza... hand washing...