This is a very interesting debate.

Are AFDDs (inclusive of RCBO) a good idea. Yes....However


Been used is Germany for about 10 years now so they are not really a new technology.

It will protect against one type or Arc not both Series and Parallel

The AFDD is to help protect against issues created by substandard electrical appliances being purchased in the UK from abroad and especially on the Web (look up underwater 4 way extension leads on Ebay, Amazon or Wish)  



BUT
AFDDs could and will trip on nuisance devices thus causing nuisance tripping
Medical or Life critical system should not be connected to AFDDs resulting in no power.  A lot of Medical systems with have secondary power supply of even a battery backup

I strongly believe that better fire detection should be implemented like all dwellings having interlinked smoke/heat alarms as is the case in Scotland.  



I look forward to the AFDD debate continuing

The situation in Germany is interesting - AFDDs first appeared in VDE 100 in 2016, and after a short period of grace for the old regs they became compulsory for sleeping accommodation, old folks homes und Kinder Gaertner, places storing flammable materials etc. and such installation was mandatory to claim compliance with the regs.

As in the UK the German wiring regs are not strictly a legal requirement, but many things mean they may as well be, and unlike in the UK you will need good luck in finding a German Sparks willing to deviate far from the text.. So in they went at least on the new builds.

However, from 2019, there has been some serious mud thrown into the water, as the installation of AFDDs is now just one of a range of measures that may be taken to reduce the risk of fire, and not always the main one, and a risk assessment is recommended  to decide the best course.

I presume this is to allow their omission for cases where problems of unwanted tripping would cause more harm than the possible good or where  other measures (fire supression/ sprinklers or buildings made of concrete ?) mean a serious fire from an arc fault is most unlikely.

There was fairly heated  discussion in the German trade apparently when they came in, but I am mostly out of that loop these days (example here)

Now in reality, having spent a few years to get folk attuned to the "AFDDs good" message I will be surprised if there will  now be a rash of Germans taking them back out, but  it does show a highly  unusual trend for Germany, that of rowing back on a hard and fast rule....

Source here - in German of course.  A non-German speaker may feed the paragraphs under the section titled "Einbau von AFDDs nicht mehr verpflichtend" into google translate for more.

I am still looking for the evidence of fire reduction, but as yet it is not showing through, either in the US figures or in the German ones...

Mike.

Edited for Grammer ' A non-German speaker..' apologies

mapj1 said:

Source here - in German of course.  non German speaker may feed the paragraphs under the section titled "Einbau von AFDDs nicht mehr verpflichtend" into google translate for more.

Or open the page in Chrome or Edge and the option to translate the web-page to English will be provided.

mapj1 said:

Source here - in German of course.  non German speaker may feed the paragraphs under the section titled "Einbau von AFDDs nicht mehr verpflichtend" into google translate for more.

Or open the page in Chrome or Edge and the option to translate the web-page to English will be provided.