Hi there,
I have had a shower fitted by an electrician for a good few years now. I have had two units one was 8kw and the current one is 8.5kw. I have been using it but it cuts off after 10 minutes at the circuit breaker/fuse. I have been googling online about it and some answers have been coming up with about the fuse amp at the board and the power of the shower. I have the wire for the shower into a 30amp circuit breaker and the maximum load on the whol circuit is 100amp. I am not too sure if the shower is too powerful and I need to get an electrican to increase the fuse amp to allow for the 8.5kw shower. Is this possible? I am not too sure of the size of the wire supplying the shower. How much do you think it would cost for an electrican to come out and change the fuse or resolve this issue? I am a woman on my own and I am so scared of cowboys taking advantage and charging me a small fortune. Iam in the UK!Help Shower trips fuse after 10 minutes use?
You need to have the actuall current measured with an amprobe. You can't just be putting bigger fuses on with out increasing wire size. If the unit says 8.5 Kw, I assume that this is 220 volt?
(Voltage X Current = Watts). Or (Wattage divided by voltage = current)
My calculations comes to 38 amps. If you have a 30 amp installed of course it will trip when the thermal overload kicks it. If the wire size is 8 AWG or bigger, you can go as high as 50 amps. But if your wire size is 10 AWG, 30 amps is max breaker size.
BTW: I don't know of any 30 amp fuses that hold at 40 amps for over 20 minutes. Wouldn't that defeat the whole point of circuit protection?
Fuses will take current inruse surges, but not running 30% over capactiy for no 20 min!Help Shower trips fuse after 10 minutes use?
Fuse size is fine; Even though demand is slightly over 30Amp, it'll never trip it as the overcurrent is so low.
EG: A 30A fuse/MCB needs 45A current flow for 20 minutes to pop it..
It'll be a loose connection somewhere in circuit. Try feeling the temperature of the supply wires at/near junctions immediately after it trips (Don't touch anything 'live') . It'll probably looked brown %26amp; charred too, if you get enough confidence to take any covers off.Help Shower trips fuse after 10 minutes use?
ground fault. drive in some ground rods and attach them with a 6 solid bare copper wire to create a cold water bond so that the ground fault can find the quickest path to ground
