Does a stove need to be on an earth leakage?

[Justloadit]

Agreed Ian, however one can not ignore being safety conscientious when dealing with people who have no clue what electricity is, and because they can not see it, they do not understand the dangers and risk involved.

[AndyD]

I'm also a firm believer you can't compile regs around trying to combat against user stupidity or abuse, but, I'm also not against improving the safety and user friendliness of an installation by installing RCBO's on every circuit, including lighting, stoves and geysers if they're a sensible option and reasonably priced.

[Dave A]

A past partner in my electrical contracting company had a theory that one of the reasons light circuits could be off earth leakage was that if you happened to get a shock while changing a light bulb, you're virtually guaranteed to break connection with the source of the shock.

I'm also a firm believer you can't compile regs around trying to combat against user stupidity or abuse, but, I'm also not against improving the safety and user friendliness of an installation by installing RCBO's on every circuit, including lighting, stoves and geysers if they're a sensible option and reasonably priced.

Hard to argue with great common sense - so I'm not even going to try

[Justloadit]

A past partner in my electrical contracting company had a theory that one of the reasons light circuits could be off earth leakage was that if you happened to get a shock while changing a light bulb, you're virtually guaranteed to break connection with the source of the shock.


Hard to argue with great common sense - so I'm not even going to try

It all depends on how high you are on a ladder.

A friend of mine, who manufacturers large transformers, a few years back was helping someone with his electric fence, and in the process shocked himself, fell off the ladder and landed on his head. Unfortunately he is now paralyzed and sits in a wheel chair.

If this had been a a typical installation with an earth leakage, then there would have been no shock and no disastrous accident

[AndyD]

Working at heights is another reason lighting should be considered high risk. It's true that any shock would possibly be a high resistance one via footwear, the step ladders and down the earth through the flooring, there's not usually much else in the vicinity that would be part of the equipotential zone unless you're unlucky enough to be holding the earthed body of the fitting whilst contacting the elevated voltage..

[Dave A]

Even if on earth leakage, you'll still get enough of a jolt to have some people falling off their ladder, folks

The solution to that hazard would be to insist on SELV or PELV only.

[ians]

The power shouldnt be on while working on a light fitting or any electrical for that matter. That is why we have circuit isolation/ lock out. A cowboy working on a live circuit shouldnt justify a standard adjustment, ie earth leakage just for a fool. The cowboys ahould be be charged for negligence if he doesnt die from his shocking experience 😏

[Justloadit]

Ians I hear you, but let me cite an example here.

Divorced mother with a 13 or 15 year old son, living in an apartment, and the lounge light pops. She asks her son to replace the globe. So he switches the light switch off, and climbs on a chair/table to replace the E28 globe. As he turns it, the glass breaks off from the base. He needs to change the globe because it is dark. Trusting that the electrician wired the place correctly, he would attempt to remove the base......... or does the divorced mother call in an electrician at R500 to replace the globe?

Does not make sense.

A lay person is under the impression that qualified artisans worked on the apartment when it was constructed, as should be the case.

[ians]

Ok...so the council should put the entire grid on earth leakage, but why. Anyone walked around squatter camps. Extension cords hanging from poles. More people die from illegal connections than people changing light bulbs. In fact exposed wiring at street light poles and CDU's which are accessible to toddlers never mind a 13 year old are very common sight.

[ians]

As it is common knowledge not to walk in the right hand of a freeway, so is the fact that electricity is dangerous. Thats why we have a law which makes the main switch accessible, less than 2.2 m and it isolates "both" live and neutral.

For the record how many people have died from electrocution changing a light bulb?

[Justloadit]

For the record how many people have died from electrocution changing a light bulb?

Just shows you how well the ELB is

Jokes aside, the illegal connections are what they are illegal, and if some one gets electrocuted, they do not blame the sparky for it or the municipality/ESKOM

[ians]

As with the example using the 15 year old, how does a 5 year old know the difference between a loose illegal wire left exposed on the ground and certified one.

[Justloadit]

Responsibility lays with the parent/property owner.
If the said property is constructed under legal specifications, one would assume that the hired artisan is actually qualified in the respective trade, and not pretending to be when accepting payment an issuing certificates.
On the other hand, a shack, to start off with does not fall under any building regulations, and any electrical connection made would fall outside the COC as it could never be a legal structure in the first place.

[phillyza]

Our oven is tripping the earth leakage. This doesn't happen immediately, but only after a while, while the oven is warming up. Yesterday I did a test and switch off all other circuit breakers except the mains, earth leakage and the oven. Just to eliminate other influences. Switched on the oven to 180 degrees. After a few minutes, it tripped earth leakage. Reset the breaker and after few minutes, tripped again. It reached the temperature, I put in muffins in the oven, baked it for 30 minutes, and it didn't trip again.

I had an electrician out at our place and explained to him what happens and he suggested (without testing anything) just to buy a new oven. He indicated that it can be the switch or the thermostat or the element and we can replace one by one but we might still have the problem and its just easier to replace the oven.

No I need a second opinion as the 2x tripping while warming up don't really justify getting a new oven, unless I'm wrong? I understand the problem is that somewhere in the circuit there is current leaking and can cause electrical shock, but can't this be traced to the exact component causing the problem?

Your assistance would appreciated.

[Lionels]

It sound to me that the element is what is causing the tripping of the earth leakage.
Depending on what type of oven it is, it could be either the bake or the grill element, but it is normally the bake element on the bottom of the oven.

With the element expanding and contracting through usage, the element shroud gets hairline cracks it it and moisture enters the element, when heating up the trapped moisture causes an earth fault, but after a while, because the element gets hot the and the crack opens up, because of expansion, the moisture can escape, thus the tripping problem stops.