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Main supply trips (disjoncteurs)


e-griff
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When there is a thunderstorm, my main supply trips out occasionally. This has to be manually reset at the main supply inlet to the house. Recently we were away, and consequently lost the contents of the freezer after one simple 'orage'.

Surely there must be something that attempts automatic resets over a period after tripping out and doesn't require a physical presence?

I am not talking about individual circuit breakers, this is the main input.

Does anyone know where and how I get such a device fitted?

JohnG

 

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Yes, there is a device that most people use to solve this problem; It's called "un voisin or une voisine". At the first sign of any trip going, the voisin automatically resets the trip. It is completely free and easy to arrange - just knock on the door of your nearest neighbour and ask.

Otherwise there is nothing else that you can do, as the main disjoncteur is property of the EDF and I can't see them replacing an estimated 50 million of them in France for auto - re-setting types.

Your friendly neighbourhood insurance man will pay you for your lost freezer contents, as long as you have a full itemised list of  defrosted items, together with photographs, and original purchase receipts!

 

 

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Mine does exactly the same. As said above it has an EDF seal on it so nothing I can do. I have a 3 phase supply and I had assumed it was watching the load/balance across phases and tripping on an imbalance (e.g. caused by the lightening).

I don't know how quickly it trips on a surge but in many respects I'm glad is does as I guess this is helping to avoid my electrical appliances being destroyed. I have a Km or two of cables running on poles supplying only my house so I've no idea if others are affected as there is nobody else "on the same supply".


Ian

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amazing coincidence! we had to visit england suddenly and while we were away our disjoncteur or whatever it is tripped. all the electricity went off. our device (yes, a voisin in this case) called round mainly to check on the pool but noticed water seeping out of our freezer. all the contents were lost and had to be thrown away. i made a list of contents and took it round to our insurers when we returned. i was told i was only covered if the freezer had broken down or alternatively if there had been a powercut and then i would need a certificate from edf to verify it. this seems rather harsh. does someone out there think that it is worth me pursuing this claim? i dont usually give up easily.
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[quote user="nicktrollope"]

Or you could have a "parafoudre" installed - compulsorary in perhaps 1/2 of the departments.

 

[/quote]

 

Unfortunately Nick this will make no difference whatsoever to the problem. A parafoudre is a device fitted after or downstream of the main EDF disjoncteur and so it will always trip (in milliseconds) before the parafoudre takes effect. A parafoudre is basically a big fuse which will soak up any huge lightning surges and hopefuly protect sensitive electrical devices from being damaged. As you mention they are compulsory in some departments. It is quite possible for the main EDF didsjonteur to trip without blowing the parafoudre, but when a parafoudre blows it always takes out the EDf trip.

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  • 3 weeks later...

re insurance;  after eight years of paying our premiums we recently tried to claim €100 after EDF's neutral to our three phase supply became disconnected and our voltage rose to 320V.  (The claim was so small because I realised we had a major problem within a few minutes and unplugged (amongst others) two laptops,  five satellite receivers,  the fridge,  etc etc,  thus saving them.)

 After six weeks we still hadn't even received the insurance claim form from our agence,  in spite of submitting EDF's damages form to our insurer.  Four messages left at the insurance agence didn't result in anyone contacting us.

So I emailed AGF head office in Paris to complain,  and guess what - it's lit a fire under our agence!   They have agreed to settle the €100 claim in spite of describing it as "hors normale" - but I don't think we will be using the same agence next year.   Which is silly as they stand to lose far more in ceased premiums on the house and tractor of €400 pa than they were so unwilling to pay out.

Whilst one likes to think of everything in France as efficient and helpful,  insurance seems to be an area where they could learn an awful lot from their anglosaxon neighbours,  at least in my limited experience....

 

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The first time our freezer went the insurance didn't cover it.

This is so annoying! They must have similar resets in the electricity substations, etc Why can't I have one?

And Voisinage ---- yeh, sure, sure. But where we live our 'protectors' get different weather from us, and we are at the end of  a long overhead line coming from a different direction to theirs...

It need fixin' In this day and age it's crazy! (watch me cleaning, bare handed, the corrupting contents of the freezer - the stench!) when all it needed was a quick reset (but we were in the UK)

 

 

 

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Wary of this occurrence in my residence secondaire, I make a point of including near the top of my freezer a plastic bag contaning loose, frozen ice cubes.

At least that way I know that if there has been a power cut in my absence, and it has lasted long enough for that bag to have been reduced to liquid and therefore be empty, then even if the contents have re-frozen from the supply magically having come back on again then I must throw out all the contents.

Sadly, you do have to let the contents thaw out a bit in order to scrape them off the sides and bottom of the freezer [+o(], so it's a slightly pong-y process, but at least I am aware that I must not eat them!

I have also learnt from bitter experience not to buy handsome bits of meat for the freezer, or half a sheep or anything. It's usually contains just leftovers that might be worth eating at a future date (or not).

Angela

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It's happened to us TWICE now, the first time the freezer contents were lost during a stay in another region of France........wife put freezer back on, refroze everything, chucked the frozen lot out, then I cleaned any residue off the shelves, ............outside!

The second go took out the boiler control programmer, which, being off for a couple of weeks, lost all it's settings. What a PITA THAT was to reprogramme............ No freezer probs, we leave nowt in it over extended absences, now[;-)]

My main worry now is what will happen if we have a THIRD incident while away during the winter, while the boiler is on it's "frost" setting? Will my house insurance cover THAT ??[blink]

Alcazar

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  • 2 weeks later...
if you are going to be away for the winter months and there is a hard winter not only may your electric cut but your pipes may freeze and shatter joints and or the mains water counter here in normandy i can have pipes freeze in the property  if you are unsure of your your insulation heating and the electric probably will trip over a three month period you wouldbe advised to cut your utilities and drain down the water system. or ya need les bon voisins
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  • 8 years later...
Reviving this after nearly a decade ...

The typical disjoncteur general is an absolute nuisance that exposes the property to all sorts of damages and security risks - any automatic processes like plant watering, alarm system, security cameras are rendered useless.

But, now there are disjoncteurs that rearm automatically.

Google Schneider 18689 for example.

There are also other manufacturers.

The issue is that the current one is sealed by the EDF.

I spoke to EDF about this and they offered to send someone out to unseal it, so I can have an electrician install an automatically rearming one.

Unfortunately they didn't follow through with sending someone to unseal the current one, so I will have to talk to them again.

This is obviously a very big problem, that needs urgent addressing.

The voisons are not necessarily the solution, particularly when they're old and can barely deal with their own properties.
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I have cheap digital thermometers on both our chest freezer and the freezer compartment in the fridge. Actually they are sold as indoor + outdoor thermometers, with a dual display showing ambient temperature and that measured by the remote sensor placed inside the freezer.

Whenever we return from a short absence I just have to push a button and I can see the maximum and minimum temperatures recorded whilst we have been away.

The ice is a good idea, but frozen food is supposed to be stored at between -10 and -20ºC, preferably not above -15ºC, so even if the ice has not melted, the food could have deteriorated if it has spent too much time at around 0ºC.

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It's interesting that this thread has reappeared.

Back in our early days here this used to happen to us, the main switch (immediately after the meter) would trip out at the slightest hint of a storm. We're in a rural village where the electricity supply is via overhead cables and thus susceptible to strikes and surges. At one point we lost the contents of our freezer when we were away. I noticed that the switch (Baco) was dated 1989 and asked the supply company (SEOLIS not EDF) if they would change it; the reply was a firm "No", not even if I paid for the whole job.

The house has been completely re-wired now and the problem seemed to have gone away, so maybe there was a fault in the circuits? But then this summer, after 5 or 6 years trip-free it has tripped out twice during the recent storms, bringing back the worries about what happens if we're away. We don't have an immediate neighbour to come and reset the switch, and to be honest, I don't see that as a proper solution in this hi-tech day and age.

Previously I did some research but found it very confusing. Firstly I don't think our meter and "disjoncteur général" to give it its proper name, belongs to EDF as everyone keeps saying; I think it's the responsibility of the supply company which could be SEOLIS in our case, or VEOLIA or EDF or other. Secondly there seems to be some doubt as to the legality, by which I mean "normes", of having a re-arming switch in a habitable building, although there are several such devices available including Legrand (which would be my choice for quality).

We use the "Loiseau method", checking the state of the frozen ice cubes!

If we go away, for central heating/frozen pipes security in the winter we leave the heating on a frost protection setting, but turn off the water main. The heating pipes are filled with anti-freeze, so it wouldn't matter if the heating went off completely, and the domestic water pipes would only flood what was left in the pipes. We would have to suffer the lost freezer contents, which is horrible, especially if there is a supply of homemade dishes from the summer's fruit!

If there is a better way I'd be pleased to hear about it, but I'm not holding my breath, after 11 years we treat it as part of the "new life experience"!

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Sid.

That's interesting that you have antifreeze in your central heating system and probably a good idea.

Obviously, cars and lorries etc, have it in all year round so presumably it will do the same job.

My central heating has the usual anti corrosion additive but I don't know if that gives freeze protection.

So, off I go to find out.

Many thanks for the tip.

Les.
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Mine also trips quite readily in stormy weather but I'm in two minds whether to get it replaced or not.

For the few months we were in the process of moving over I rigged up a strobe light on a car battery with trickle charger and a relay so it would come on if the power went off and screwed it to the canopy of the garage so even thought our nearest neighbours couldn't actually see our house through the trees the flashing strobe would have been unmissable at night and would prompt them to come and check the trip which they did on a couple of occasions.

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[quote user="vette"]My central heating has the usual anti corrosion additive but I don't know if that gives freeze protection.

So, off I go to find out.

Many thanks for the tip.

Les.[/quote]

Thread drift but No it doesn't hence the €70+ less price tag.

Good idea that Ernst,

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Even cheap alarms can send out a notice when the power is cut off and comes back.

The thing is the reactivation.

Even if you trust your neighbors and they're still pretty agile,

they're not necessarily going to get there shortly after the power went out to reset it. Not to mention that it could go out several times during a storm.

Besides all the other issues, in some parts of France security is paramount.

So, overall, it's absolutely incredible that these 'normal' disjoncteurs are the accepted norm, when the automatically resetting type would resolve all of these issues.

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Now you're being a bit silly.

Any freezer will stand a few hours without power so if it did trip due to storm activity it would be perfectly OK to wait until it had passed before resetting.

 

I was not expecting the neighbours to don foul weather gear and sprint 400m

there and back in the eye of a tempest the instant it tripped and of course I trusted them !

In any case an automatic reset rather defeats the object, remember the prime purpose of the  disjoncteur is to protect within the property and if a fault develops there which causes it to trip having it automatically reset itself is not really the best idea is it ?

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[quote user="desmo"]

So, overall, it's absolutely incredible that these 'normal' disjoncteurs

are the accepted norm, when the automatically resetting type would

resolve all of these issues.[/quote]

[quote user="AnOther"]

In

any case an automatic reset rather defeats the object, remember the

prime purpose of the  disjoncteur is to protect within the property and

if a fault develops there which causes it to trip having it

automatically reset itself is not really the best idea is it ?

[/quote]

I, too, have been wondering about the apparent inability of some people to think things through, AnO.

So

your visiting small grandchild sticks its finger into a mains socket,

but fortunately the differential trip (let's use the correct terms, eh.)

operates, and disconnects the power before any serious harm is done.

But then, in desmo's ideal world, the trip keeps resetting until the child is tits up.

Perfick[:D]
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That would certainly be the case in an old installation with no ID's in the tableau so its imperative that the disjoncteur de branchement doesnt cut back in, also at 500ma trip current if it didnt kill the first time it may well do the second time.

 

Against that anyone child or otherwise that would leave their finger on the juice after getting the first 500ma packet perhaps should succomb to natural selection [:D]

 

A modern tableau with 30mA ID's will trip the ID and not the main AGCP.

 

I have a total of thirteen 500mA disjoncteur de branchements both instantaneous and selectif that could trip during a thunderstorm but none of them ever have, we dont get as many storms here but still get several every year, I have had ID's pop but never the AGCP's.

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[quote user="Théière"]Maybe the ones that trip too frequently are just worn out?
[/quote]

My thoughts exactly, which is why I was surprised, not to say disappointed when our electricity supplier refused point blank to replace ours even if I were to pay the full cost. [:(]

 

 

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When I posted above as ssomon (as I was using a new laptop and couldn't log in) I was thinking of a 30mA differential trip operating, rather than the main supply breaker tripping because of its differential.

I still think it would be potentially dangerous to have the main breaker automatically resetting, as it could equally well have tripped due to an overload as an earth fault.

In the hope that a 30mA device might trip before the main breaker trips on its 500mA setting (although "races" between trip settings don't always result in the one with the lowest setting winning) it is a good idea to wire the freezer(s) in a circuit not protected by a differential trip (other than the main breaker).

Regarding the possibility that devices which trip too frequently might be worn out, a more common fault, due to the device not operating often enough, is for it to fail to trip because the mechanism has become too stiff.

This is a reason for periodically "exercising" protective devices by operating them.

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