Safety switches and RCDs, installed and tested

A circuit breaker is there to protect the wiring in your walls. A safety switch is there to protect whoever is touching the appliance. Plenty of houses on this coast have the first and not the second.

A safety switch, or RCD, compares the current going out with the current coming back. If some of it is going somewhere it should not, usually through a person or into water, it cuts the supply in about thirty milliseconds.

A lot of older installations have one safety switch covering the powerpoints only, with the lights, oven, hot water and air conditioning left unprotected. People assume they are covered because there is a switch on the board. We can tell you in a few minutes which of your circuits actually are.

What is included

• A check of which circuits in your board are genuinely protected
• Testing existing safety switches with proper test equipment
• Installing RCBOs so every circuit gets its own protection
• Replacing safety switches that fail their trip time
• Tracking down nuisance tripping instead of just resetting it
• Compliance for rental and short stay properties
• Certificate of electrical safety where required

Pressing the test button on the board only proves the mechanism moves. It does not prove the device trips fast enough to protect anyone. That needs a meter, which is why testing is worth having done properly.

Why choose Coastal Electrics

If your safety switch keeps tripping, the answer is not a bigger one or a bypass. It is finding the fault. We will chase down what is actually causing it rather than making the symptom go away.

We install and test safety switches in Lorne, Aireys Inlet, Fairhaven, Anglesea, Torquay, Jan Juc, Eastern View, Wye River, Kennett River, Skenes Creek and Apollo Bay.