1300 877 353
Email
Safety switches are an essential part of any residential electrical safety plan.
While circuit breakers will protect the wiring and appliances within your house from sudden surges, safety switches are designed to protect you and your family. Electric shocks and electricity-related fires are a very real danger, so it’s important to make sure your safety switches are well maintained.
We get a lot of questions about safety switches and what they do. We’ve put some answers together to give you a little more information about how important they are and the different kinds of switch available.
How does a safety switch work?
The safety switch carefully monitors the flow of electricity in a power circuit. If the electricity is leaking through faulty appliances, switches, or wiring, the amount of electricity in that circuit drops suddenly.
The safety switch registers this drop and trips, automatically shutting off the power supply. It dramatically reduces the chance that you or someone in your home or business could come into contact with the leaking electricity and be electrocuted.
If the power supply continued to leak and someone came into contact with it, they could act as conduit and have electricity flowing through their body.
Electrocution can cause you to start having muscular pains, breathing difficulties, burns, heart failure, or if it’s an especially severe electrocution, can even be fatal.
What type of safety switch do I need?
There are three main types of safety switches: switchboard units, power point units, and portable units.
Switchboard units are installed on your main switchboard and are the best option to ensure complete installation protection or to protect a selected circuit. If you ask your electrician to set up a safety switch for each circuit, you won’t need to deal with a complete power black out in the case of a fault. Lighting and appliances on other circuits will continue to operate.
Power point units are used to protect a specific point and are built in to the power point itself.
The portable units are designed to protect you when you’re using extension cords and portable power tools. If you have an appliance that is portable, a switchboard safety switch may not be enough to keep you safe. A portable unit plugs directly into the power point, and you plug your tool or appliance into that, giving you an added level of security.
Do I need to get a safety switch?
It’s not mandatory to have safety switches installed in older homes in Adelaide, but as it could mean the difference between life and death, installation is highly recommended.
You should consider having safety switches installed on all circuits in your home, including power points, lights, air conditioning, oven, hot water and pool equipment circuits.
If you already have safety switches installed, they need to be regularly checked and serviced to make sure they’re still functioning at their best.
Are my safety switches faulty?
You can test your own safety switches by pressing the ‘Test’ or ‘T’ button. When you do this, the switch should immediately flip to the off position. If it doesn’t, you should contact a qualified electrician as soon as you can, because you might have a potentially dangerous situation on your hands.
A common misconception is that a safety switch that keeps tripping is broken or needs replacing. In actual fact, it’s more likely to be doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. A broken safety switch is one that doesn’t stop the power supply!
If you’re having to visit the electrical box and switch your safety switch back on often, it’s likely that you have a problem with wiring or an appliance. One way to test is to unplug all your appliances, switch the power supply back on, and then slowly plug appliances back in until you find the culprit. If you still can’t find the faulty appliance or power point, it’s time to call a qualified electrician to take a look for you.