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Switchboard upgrades
there is a million combinations here are some recommendations.
Surge protection.
Fuses replaced with Circuit breakers.
Safety switches to cover circuits.
Information taken off a Canberra web site.
http://canberraelectrician.com/
this is unfortunately happening and required all over Australia. If your in
Canberra contact these guys or if your in South east Qld they might want to
charge you travel expenses.
It's a sad fact that over
1000 Australian homes a year are damaged or destroyed
due to Electrical Fires. In addition, every year, over
40 Australians die from electricution and over
10,000 are injured by electric shock.
Many of these accidents could have been
prevented if there switchboards hade been upgraded to current Australian
Standards.
Australian Standard AS3000:2007 has just been
released and it includes updated safety requirements for new australian
homes. If your home has old style plug in re-wireable fuses these mandated
safety requirements do not apply and you and your
family could be at risk!
Read on to find out how to improve the safety in your
home....
Switchboards of ALL NEW
homes and commercial buildings are REQUIRED to
be fitted with Safety Switches known as Residual Current Devices
(RCD) to all circuits that have light fittings or power points. These Safety
switches are hard wired into your switchboard in combination with a Circuit
Breaker to provide two levels of safety.
The first element of safety is that the RCD
(Safety Switch) is designed to turn off the electricity supply within 40
milliseconds, That is 40/1000th of a second, if there is more than a
predefined level of power flowing to earth. These type of current flows can
be caused by things like faults in equipment, or accidental contact with
live parts of equipment. For example, an RCD can prevent electrocution death
by sticking metal objects into power points or light fittings etc..
The second level of protection is in the
Circuit Breaker part of the device. As they are hard wired they can not be
accidentally changed with an incorrectly rated fuse. The role of the Circuit
Breaker is to limit the current in the cable inside your home. If too high a
current is allowed to flow in a cable it can over heat and catch fire.
RCDs (safety switches) can be purchased as a
separate unit and used in conjunction with a separate circuit breaker or in
a RCD/CB (safety switch/circuit breaker) combination unit.
Australian Authorities think these devices
are important enough that they are mandatory in ALL new homes and commercial
buildings....... and so should you!
Electrical Fires
"Fixed wiring under floors and in walls and ceiling
spaces is frequently concealed and not readily inspected. If
it was damaged when originally installed, has been damaged
by later building processes, or has deteriorated through
other causes, its degraded condition is generally unknown.
Arcing between conductors, or resistive heating under
overload conditions, can lead to ignition of electrical
components and adjacent combustible materials. In fact,
electrical distribution accounts for around 10% of all fires
in dwellings."
Source: National Association of
Steel-Framed Housing
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Does your Switchboard need
upgrading?
Old Rewireable Fuses?
Many homes in the (Australia)Canberra and Queanbeyan area have
switchboards wire old style rewireable fuses. You can identify these
units as they are made of a ceramic material and are usually black
or white in colour.
These re-wireable fuses have a plug in unit that has a short
piece of fuse wire connected between two screws on the unit. The
exterior of the fuse unit indicates the amperage of the fuse wire to
be inserted and is rated depending on the size of the cable in the
circuit it protects.
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All very well in theory, but when a fuse blows and you do not
have the correct fuse wire to replace it then what? Unfortunately
some people replace blown fuses with whatever wire they can get
their hands on.
The result of this can be quite disastrous. The following
two photos are from the switchboard shown above when the wrong type
of wire was inserted in the fuse block. Fortunately the home
owner noticed a problem before this switchboard fire got out of
hand.
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Problems associated with rewireable fuses
include:
- Inconvenient to repair, night time, no fuse wire at home,
- Prone to being replaced with wrong rated fuse wire, may cause
electrical fire,
- Chance of Electric shock or Electrocution while changing fuse due to
exposed
live contacts,
- Large fuse blocks may be physically difficult to remove,
- No RCD (safety switch) protection of power points and light sockets
against
accidental electric shock.
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Upgrading your Switchboard can improve your safety!
"Each year more than 40 people are killed by
electrocution in Australia, with 50% of those occurring
in the home. In addition, there are more than 10,000
people injured each year using electricity."
Source: IDC News ISSUE 4 SUMMER
2006
Installing RCDs (Safety Switches) in your
home WILL lower the risk of Electrocution to you and your
family.
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Plug-In Circuit Breakers - The Cheap Alternative??
For many years now it has been possible for the home owner to buy Plug-In
Circuit Breakers and "Up-grade" their own circuit breakers. A sure sign that
this is not the best way to do an upgrade is that you do not have to get
these Plug-In Circuit breakers from an electrical wholesaler or electrician,
no - you can buy them at your local Woolworths or Coles.
While plug in breakers do seem like a convenient solution to allow quick
restoration after they trip the have two distinct disadvantages when
compared to a proper switchboard upgrade. Firstly they provide no RCD
(Safety Switch) protection against accidental electrocution, and secondly,
as they are a plug-in device, they suffer the same problems of having an
incorrect rating placed into a circuit, increasing the possibility of
electrical fire.
Problems associated with plug-in circuit breakers include:
- Inconvenient to repair, night time, no fuse wire at home,
- Prone to people purchasing and installing an incorrectly rated
plug-in circuit breaker, may cause electrical fire,
- Chance of Electric shock or Electrocution if removed due to exposed
live contacts,
- No RCD (safety switch) protection of power points and light sockets
against accidental electric shock
The truth is that plug-in breakers DO NOT provide the same level of
safety as a RCD
The smallest amount of electrical current can kill.
It takes only a tiny amount of electrical current to seriously or
fatally injure a normal, healthy adult.
The severity of an electric shock is usually determined by the
amount of current flowing through the body and the length of time
the current flows before it is cut off.
A RCD (Safety Switch) cuts off the power supply when the current
to ‘Earth' exceeds 30 thousandths of an ampere, a minuscule amount
when you consider many appliances such as power tools and portable
heaters can use up to 10 ampere.
When a difference in current flow occurs, a RCD (Safety Switch)
will cut the power within 40 thousandths of a second, about a
fortieth of the time taken for a single heartbeat, or the click of
your fingers.
Source: Clipsal Australia
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Switchboard Upgrade Alternatives
Partial Upgrade
It is possible to do partial upgrades to your switchboard. In this case
only circuits containing light fittings and power points need be upgraded.
This is achieved by installing RCDs or RCD/CB combos in a small housing on
your existing switch board.
A partial upgrade will give you the following benefits.
- improved safety against accidental electrocution
- hard wired connection to those circuits protected by the device
(reduced fire risk)
Circuits not upgraded, but left with old style re-wireable fuses or
plug-in circuit breakers will still be exposed to the possibility of
incorrect rated devices being installed and higher fire risk.
Full Upgrade
A full upgrade involves replacing all old fuses on your switchboard with
a new RCDs and Circuit Breakers mounted in a complete new housing.
- No more accidental risk of contact to live wires at the switchboard.
- No more inconvenience changing old blown fuses.
- Restore power at the flick of a switch.
- Hard wired protection of your home electrical cabling against
overload faults.
- RCD (safety switch) protection of ALL your power points and light
fittings.
Correctly rated devices are Hard Wired into the switchboard preventing
accidental connection of an inappropriately rated device. All circuits
containing light circuits and power points will have RCDs installed.
This switchboard was upgraded to current australian Standards to prevent
any reoccurrence of this type of fault. Circuits are now protected
against over current faults as well as earth leakage faults.
The benefits of upgrading your switch board include:
- easy circuit restoration when circuit tripped due to overload,
- protection against electrocution with earth leakage breakers,
- prevent cables overheating and cable fires
If you are interested in getting your switchboard inspected and upgraded,
contact us for an obligation free quote.
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