How does a Safety Switch protect against electric shocks?

Safety in the home should be your number one concern by reducing or eliminating any electrical hazard that could threaten your family’s safety or your property is vital. Your friendly local electrician on Gold Coast can inspect your home or business’s wiring and install safety switches where appropriate as it’s a fact, that safety switches save property and lives every day on The Gold coast.

Many people are not aware of the role of a safety switch or how they differ from fuses and standard circuit breakers. A safety switch is a type of circuit breaker that is able to detect if any current is leaking from a circuit and almost instantly turn that circuit off to avoid injury or electrocution.

Safety Switches

Safety switches are primarily designed to protect people from any electrical hazard. They do this by turning off the current or power is a fraction of a second. The easiest way to tell them from ordinary circuit breakers is that they have a test button on them allowing you to regularly test them to ensure they are working properly.

They have a different function than fuses and circuit breakers that are used to protect wiring and appliances from overloads and short circuits.

Legally Required

Government regulations require that all circuits in new properties and any new additions or rewiring jobs in existing installations include a safety switch on all circuits. All rental properties must have safety switches installed on all power circuits.

When moving into a new property it’s advisable that you check or have your friendly local electrician on The Gold Coast check to make sure the appropriate safety switches are installed and working properly.

Where you can find safety switches

Safety Switches are usually located inside your power box or fuse box. These power boxes are where your power meter is located and often located on the front of your building or in some apartments, located in the carport or garage. Safety switches should be connected to and marked for each circuit, they can be identified by their test buttons. Every circuit including lighting, power outlets (power-points) air conditioners, built in freezers, water heaters, electric ranges, spar’s, hot tubs, saunas and swimming pools need a safety switch. If you have a sub board in your garage or out building these should also be fitted with appropriate safety switches. Often extension cords that are designed for outdoor use will have a built in safety switch for added safety.

To test your safety switches

Once you have located your safety switches, turn all your lights and some appliances connected to each circuit you wish to test. In this way when you activate the test button the circuit should instantly go dead and the lights turn off or the associated appliance turned off.

If the power in the circuits remains active or takes a noticeable amount of time to shut down the circuit, then the safety switch is probably faulty and needs to be replaced immediately by your local electrician on The Gold Coast.

At the very least your electrician on The Gold Coast needs to investigate to find the reason why your safety switch is not working properly.

 

Safety Switches are designed to save lives by cutting off the power supply as soon as any leakage is detected, but they must be installed by a licenced and qualified electrician on The Gold Coast.