I had my PM contact me advising that my tenant said the power to the garage trips every few hours while he is using power tools in there. I had an electrician attend and he advised me that there was no safety issue, there were no fridges/freezers kept in garage. He mentioned that there may be an issue underground which will cost a good part of $4,000 to dig up and rewire. There is no electric issue to the dwelling itself - just the separate external garage. The tenants have come back to my PM asking for a $20/pw rent reduction or they will "take it further". I did suggest running an extension cable from the house to the garage if they wanted to which in my mind is quite reasonable.. My question is - if I essentially tell them to jog on with their rent reduction claim, what happens? I checked out NSW site around property condition etc and couldn't find much info. Any thoughts?
Could the electrician hook into the power in the house and run some to the garage instead of digging underground? And could it be faulty power tools?
I'm with @Piston_Broke If your sparky has checked the electrics (resistance test) and it has passed then the tenant either has a faulty power tool (most likely the lead, and that's why it doesn't trip every time, but only when swung the right/wrong way) or the tenant is drawing too much power (or more power than the circuit allows). The newer trip switches are just so sensitive it doesn't take much !
It's not that they're sensitive (SNAG)*, they are more accurate and work at the limit. Spoiler: * SNAG Sensitive New Age Gadget
Didyou ask him what he means by "may" ? There should be no reason that the sparky sould not be able to thoroughly test the cable (resistance of each wire, insulation resistance (megger) test, and earth continuity check) and give it a clear bill of health. I'd be unimpressed if a sparky came back with a "may" answer after paying for an inspection. My money would be on either a faulty appliance, or too many appliances being used simultaneously. One of my tenants complains about a circuit breaker tripping, upon questioning I found that she was trying to us a microwave, electric kettle, grill, rice cooker and a couple of other things simultaneously on the same circuit. I would expect the circuit breaker to trip with that load and told her that, she isn't happy about it but that's pretty standard in any house and she's now dealing with it.
Can the tenant try using an extension cord from the main house power for a little while and if it trips again then it is likely his power tools causing the problem. If it doesn’t trip then it could be the garage power problem.
Is it always the same powerpoint in the garage producing this result? If there's more than one, try one of the others. Either way, I'd hedge my bets on a squished cable theory. I have a gas oven in a rental that from memory also relies on electricity for some reason. It kept shorting out the power. We didn't realise that it was due to a squished gas pipe behind the oven until a flexihose to the dishwasher burst, thereby flooding the kitchen and requiring a new kitchen via the insurance. Once everything was pulled out they noticed the squished gas pipe.
