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Wylex combined AFDD/RCBO

I was in the wholesalers today when the Wylex rep turned up.

He had a combined RCBO/AFDD that he was showing off. The same size as a circuit breaker, much like their current range of RCBO's, albeit these have a neutral fly lead.

If you believed him, we will all be fitting these in a years time. He equated it to people fitting a new boiler, they do that at 10-15 year intervals for £1500, we'll be doing the same with consumer units at a similar cost!

There was a lot of salesman talk about 15000 house fires a year caused by electrical faults, and this unit will stop that. I'm not sure he has assessed the figures correctly, all of these fires cannot have been caused by arcing.

Anyway, he says they are very high tech, and internally test their AFDD capability every 15 hours (how, without cutting the power?).

Lifespan? He says a long time. We laughed. If the AFDD side fails, it needs a new complete unit.

And the current cost - £110 each.

Until they are below £35, I just cannot see many of these being sold.

Parents

0 mapj1 over 5 years ago
Let us turn that around, the BS1363 specification is what specifies the only things you are expected to plug in if you wish to operate in a BS approved manner.

Part 1: Rewirable and non-rewirable 13 A fused plugs

Part 2: 13 A Switched and unswitched socket-outlets

Part 3: Adaptors

Part 4: 13 A fused connection units: switched and unswitched

Part 5: 13 A fused conversion plugs

There is no (well, when I last looked, anyway)

Part 6: A piece of unfused low grade plastic tat intended to defeat the safety mechanism of sockets manufactured to Part 2.

And until there is, such things have no BS approval, whatever letters and numbers the makers may stamp on them, and if you are using them, you are legally in the same position as opening the shutters with the lid to your biro and poking your meter probes in (i.e. you are on your own).

While we have all done that, some even with our kids, and we know it is fairly safe, that is only true if and only if you know what you are doing. The sort of person buying the 'socket safe' child protector or whatever would probably never dream of letting their kids do so and should treat the plastic things the same,
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0 mapj1 over 5 years ago
Let us turn that around, the BS1363 specification is what specifies the only things you are expected to plug in if you wish to operate in a BS approved manner.

Part 1: Rewirable and non-rewirable 13 A fused plugs

Part 2: 13 A Switched and unswitched socket-outlets

Part 3: Adaptors

Part 4: 13 A fused connection units: switched and unswitched

Part 5: 13 A fused conversion plugs

There is no (well, when I last looked, anyway)

Part 6: A piece of unfused low grade plastic tat intended to defeat the safety mechanism of sockets manufactured to Part 2.

And until there is, such things have no BS approval, whatever letters and numbers the makers may stamp on them, and if you are using them, you are legally in the same position as opening the shutters with the lid to your biro and poking your meter probes in (i.e. you are on your own).

While we have all done that, some even with our kids, and we know it is fairly safe, that is only true if and only if you know what you are doing. The sort of person buying the 'socket safe' child protector or whatever would probably never dream of letting their kids do so and should treat the plastic things the same,
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel

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Wylex combined AFDD/RCBO

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