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715 ELV lighting: why only lighting?

wallywombat

Section 715 applies specifically to ELV lighting installations. But surely most of its contents (e.g. "fire risk of transformers") applies to any ELV system, not just lighting. So why does that section limit itself just to lighting?

  • +1

    I suspect it was a reaction to the fashion for 12V halogen lighting a few decades ago - sold as "safe" (because it was SELV) a lot of people presumed it could be installed safely with minimum skills or electrical knowledge ... but many of the same people overlooked the simple physics that 1/20th of the voltage meant 20x the current for the same wattage and wired it up in the same small cables/flexes and terminals they might have used for 240V lighting circuits Plus transformers got stuffed into ceiling voids and/or covered with loft insulation or general debris .. result an awful lot of fires.  ELV lighting appeared in building regs (part P) as a 'special installation' at about the same time, so there may have been some co-ordination with that too.

    These days with cooler running electronic "transformers" and LED replacing incandescent lamps, the hazards a probably substantially lower than they used to be.

       - Andy.

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