We’ve had a few things happen recently that might point to there being an issue with the house’s mains electric. The good news is that it’s a new build still under warranty so the developer is sending an electrician out next week, but I’d like to get some idea of what it could be beforehand.

First thing, this has happened for a while, is that one of our bedside lights turns itself on occasionally. It’s one of those that you touch anywhere on the base and it turns on. It’s one of a pair and it’s same one that turns on.
The next thing is the lounge smoke alarm has gone off twice at a similar time in the morning (before 7am and before anyone was up). These are mains wired, linked units.
The most recent thing is, twice this week we’ve come downstairs to find the dishwasher running! We’d have put on it after dinner and it normally finishes before we go to bed, but we just leave it until the morning.

These events could all be independent and nothing to do with the mains supply. Each of the units could just be faulty, but could they all be linked? The events in the morning might be due to the boiler firing up for hot water, or a power surge at that time? I seem to remember the smoke alarm thing also happening on a Thursday/Friday.

Have you checked the house isn’t built on top of a former cemetery first?

definitely ghosts

Hi,
‘Could’ be ghosts but we had a similar thing last year (with a touch sensitive light), and (slightly more boringly than ghosts), traced it to a live wire crossing over to an earth on some crazy wiring in our loft. Sometimes those lights are just really sensitive to spikes in the voltage – but with the other issues you describe it sounds a bit more like something else not right. Get it checked out by a professional and don’t get fobbed off by the developer if you’re not satisfied.

Your bedside lamp is likely faulty.

All smoke alarms should sound during a test. If only the single one is going off, it’s faulty. Replace, or at least swap it with another one in the house to localise the problem.

Dishwasher electronics are the spawn of the devil.

Voltage drops at peak times can cause some weird symptoms. I’ve also seen some interesting behaviour after the bus-bar was inserted into the screw terminals on the MCBs by mistake.

You can also ask the local DNO/IDNO to check the incomming supply. Rather than a spot check, it sounds like they’d be better off fitting a voltage recorder at your cut out and monitoring it for a week.

If you dual 105 from a landline, it should put you straight through to the right people.

Swap the lamps over, see what happens.

Will swap the lights over and see what happens.

And then call an exorcist.
😉

The developer’s contract electrician came out yesterday and swapped the smoke alarm. Based on his advice, I think it’s likely that the unit went faulty because we didn’t know you have to vacuum them out regularly… it’s in the most used room of the house so likely the one with the most dust. We’ve been in 4 years, everything is warranted to 5 years (a quite a good deal!). Hopefully the swap eliminates that.

The dishwasher did its usual trick this morning though. Using the quoted cycle run times in the manual and working back from when it stops indicates that the dishwasher started at 6am. This ties in with the hot water coming on…. I suspected they might correlate but only confirmed it today, typically after the electrician’s visit.

Can easily get the electrician back but would be good to have something to point them to. We’ve found it’s best to do things step by step with developer when it comes to remedial issues, rather than throw a lot at them at once.

Will get the dishwasher into a state of having done a cycle then turn the hot water on a few times to see what happens….

Also thought about getting a plugin socket tester and checking all of the sockets in the house. Anything else I can check before I get the electrician back? I have a nagging feeling that something somewhere isn’t grounded properly

Do you have a fuse board, MCB or RCD?

Edit. Ignore, just read your last post. Wouldn’t a faulty piece of equipment trip the RCD?

We lived in a house that had been rewired to current standards and it ate lightbulbs like you wouldn’t believe, never tripped any thing though. Current house has had a RCD fitted since we moved in and a bulb out trips as did the kettle when it went wrong.

Wouldn’t a faulty piece of equipment trip the RCD?

If it was the power side of things then yes I’d hope so. I think the dishwasher issue will be electronics rather than electrics though

definitely ghosts

Not something to worry about as ghosts aren’t real. By eliminating the supernatural the only logical explanation is that some creepy guy is hiding in your attic, only coming out at night to monkey about with stuff and freak you out. I can only presume he does this because  long pig tastes better when it has been marinated for several weeks in cortisol.

That is something to worry about, but paradoxically worrying about it will only hasten your demise.

Wouldn’t a faulty piece of equipment trip the RCD?

Not necessarily. The fault has to be live to earth or neutral to earth, along with sufficient leakage current and duration to trip.

You can set a timer on many dishwashers if you want to check the obvious first…

Would that explain why blown bulbs never tripped the rcd in my previous house.

The good news is that it’s a new build

Move……now, whilst you still can !!!!

I would be getting an independent electrician to check the electrics on the house. I certainly would not be trusting the builders electrician

There are some things science just can’t explain.

As an aside I wouldn’t be leaving the dishwasher on overnight. Having watched one go up in smoke was a very sobering experience