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I have just returned from a week away in my Adria Caravan.   On the last night of the stay, we noticed a burning smell, so I switched every electrical appliance off and did all ther routine checks.  We found the live wire connection inside the caravan electrical box (feeding in electric from the site) had melted through the plastic and welded itself to the connector.  Firstly, I have no idea how this could have happened, but secondly, how should I repair the fault, do I simply buy another electrical box and clean up the hook up lead ?.  Any ideas ?.

Thanks

It may be a simply replacement job but you you need to find out what happened first.

Any normal overload would have tripped the mcb/fuse on the hookup post, so I would first suspect  the live connection in the van was loose or poorly connected and this caused it to overheat.

This is assuming the wiring was adequate in the first place which of course it should be. How old is your van and what did you have running at the time?

firstly ,the burning would have occured from a loose connection, and continuous use of a large appliance , say, a heater or kettle, would result in the burning.

it should be a fairly simple fault to repair. if the burning is where the blue hook up lead connects to the vans inlet socket ,

"sorry i could'nt tell from the discription" then buy another hook up plug and replace the burnt one .

simularly if the inlet socket is too badly burnt to clean up ,buy a new inlet socket, and replace it, it is fairly straight forward only 3 wires. if you take note of the position of the wires.

if the wires from the inlet socket to the distribution box are burnt. cut a foot of the hook up lead, and strip it to get the new wires to replace them.

needles to say, ensure the hook up lead is not plugged in.

stu.

Hi Dave , it sounds like it could have been caused by a loose connection , i would replace the hook-up box and the connector on the hook-up lead , it shouldn't cost the earth and is probably best in the long run .

atb

Wizard

My father used to tell us to open out the ehu cable fully - ie not have it wound in a coil, he said it would overheat and cause a fire.  I was never sure if that was so, but we did as we were told and never had a problem.  Perhaps someone on here can confirm/deny it !!

Jenny

It definately sounds like a loose connection,but once you have carried out the necessary repairs you should check thet the rcd and mcb's are operating correctly and are actually going to trip under a fault. Also, it might be wise to use a socket tester to make sure you have everything connected the right way be once you have repaired it (most things will still work with live and neutral reversed but it means you could end up with things being live when you think they are off).

You should un-tangle your power cables and any extension leads you may be using because if they are left coiled up they do warm up .They make electric fires by coiling wire!