I currently have a similar emergency and since I know nothing, would be grateful for a steer. My mains supply was tripping and wouldn't stay on until I had disconnected the circuit containing my Camray 5 oil boiler.
The engineer from Southern Electricity has just been and confirmed a live-to-earthor live-to-neutral fault on the boiler, suggesting it might be caused by water ingress into the valve, pump, programmer or wiring. His resistance meter gave a 0.1 reading on the junction box in my outside boiler room, which he said should be at least 0.5 (megohms). He was not able to investigate further and suggested I call out a boiler engineer.
My boiler is serviced regularly by Emo Team Energy and on their most recent annual service visit a couple of months ago, they diagnosed a faulty oil pump which they duly replaced. Is it possible that this work - or the regular service - could have left me with a fault which could cause my power trips? I have had a couple of RCD trips since then but was able to re-set the RCD and carry on…until this week when the RCD refused to re-set until I had isolated the boiler.
The SEC engineer said that the problem could be caused by a drop or two of water gradually building up - and occasionally rectifying itself if the water dries out. If so, and I can trace it to the work done by Emo Team Energy, then they will obviously have to fix the problem FOC. But since I need to call them out to investigate, I can't be sure that their engineer will tell me the whole truth and nothing but.
Should I call in an independent engineer instead? That would possibly start a lengthy process of trying to recover his costs from Emo Team Energy, which wouldn't be ideal either.
And anyway, where do I find this superhero who not only fixes boilers but also diagnoses electrical and plumbing faults? I could be going round in circles forever - and I'm an OAP with no central heating or hot water.
Thanks for any advice.