In this update we look at electrical safety in your home. We are always conscious that electricity, whilst bringing huge benefits to society, always needs to be treated with the utmost respect. It is critical that you only get a licensed electrician to do electrical work in your home and incorrectly wired appliances, lighting circuits or power points can result in fatalities – it is that simple.

Safety Switches – R.C.D.’s

Residual current devices are life saving technologies that every single home and business need to have. They guard against the possibility of electric shock, electrical shorts causing fires and faulty appliances becoming potentially

Residual current device (r.c.d.)

lethal. They work by detecting current (the flow of electricity) imbalances in your homes’ electrical circuits. If an ‘imbalance’ is detected, the residual current device will cut the power to that circuit extremely quickly – in less time than it takes for a human heart to beat. These electrical imbalances could be as a result of electric current flowing through a person, from a faulty appliance, for example, through to earth potential. It could be that the r.c.d. detects an imbalance in the current in the active power line compared to the neutral line, signalling a potential fault condition which results in the power being cut off very rapidly. We can advise on testing your r.c.d’s, which should be done regularly, or installing them for you.

Electrical Safety Inspections

If you have bought a new property, are looking to renovate or extend a property or have concerns about the electrical integrity of your building we can do a full electrical safety inspection. Because of the vintage of many eastern suburbs properties this is a wise move. It could well be that wiring in the roof space of your home has degraded over time (particularly for properties more than 50 years old) and now poses a risk of electrical short circuits which can lead to tripping circuit breakers or blown fuses or worse still, an electrical fire. Likewise, we find many homes have outdated switchboards that can also potentially be a safety issue and we will look to repair or replace it if deemed unsafe. Modern switchboards use circuit breakers rather than the old porcelain fuses and offer a much higher degree of electrical safety and sophistication. If you have loose power points or light switches that are intermittent, then these need to be investigated and remedied too. It could be that you have an old outside laundry where the electrical wiring was done by a’home handyman’. If this is the case it is almost certainly not meeting current electrical compliance standards and needs to be repaired to meet modern electrical standards.

Conclusion

If you have concerns around electrical safety in your home it needs to be investigated and remedied if found to be potentially hazardous. Electricity can kill and needs to be treated with the respect it deserves.