To make a mistake is human, to learn from that mistake is knowledge and knowledge is strength.
Hi chaps I was at a house in Cape Town yesterday and was quite surprised when I opened the DB to find that there were no earth continuity conductors present except one 6mm "main" earth. The house is busy being renovated and a prepaid meter was installed. I could clearly see that the conductors had been lengthened and a new DB installed. I walked around the house and saw that the light switches and plugs were still really old but functional. I phoned the chap who did the COC and asked why there was no earthing. He said that since the installation was pre 91 (which is actually 92) the steel conduit served as the earth continuity conductor and that since the DB was now surface mounted he had bonded all the steel pipes together behind the DB and then taken one wire and terminated it in the consumers earth terminal. My big question is if he altered the installation i.e. the whole DB doesn't he have to comply with the new regs, which states that a wireway shall NOT act as a earth continuity conductor. Is his claim that he only re-did the DB valid? I had a look at the OHS act Electrical installations section 7-3 which sheds some light but not much. Any help would be great!
fact...you cannot install fuses in a new "domestic" installation...but there is no rules in the sans book that indicated that you cannot pass a domestic installation which had fuses installed orginally...however you can indicate to the owner that it would be advisable to replace the fuses and upgrade the fuse to a new DB with circuit breakers and earth leakage.
just like an installation which has no earth leakage...if there have been no alterations or addtions done since the date date the rule was enforced...we all know this is hard to apply because i have seen numerous installations where a plug has been installed and twin+e has been used...however i do advise the customer to install an earth leakage for their own safety and mine...while working in the building
Did you like this article? Share it with your favourite social network.