From EEBADS to ADS !

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Revved Up Sparky

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Hello folks, I'm new on here so bear with me lol. I have recently returned to the electrical contracting industry after a four year break.

On my return I find that I am working to 17th edition rather than 16th which I was used to !.

In 2005 I was involved in so many LHA contracts where I had to upgrade outdated earthing systems and install supplementary bonding in bathrooms. Virtually everything in the bathroom received a supplementary earth !.

Now that has all changed and in most cases, supplementary bonding is not required provided RCD protection is in place and the incoming services are correctly bonded with 10mm MEBC's.

I cannot get it out of my head that RCD's can fail. I have done enough inspection and testing to see that this can happen. Is it right to rely so heavily on RCD's to protect people against electric shock ?. Surely it would be better to have both supplementary bonding AND RCD protection (EEBADS) as protection against electric shock rather than just RCD's (ADS) (given the MEBC's are still fitted).

Do you agree with ADS ? or do you prefer EEBADS ?

Best Regards

Tim

 
well the BRB says RCD, so RCD's must be safe. but then its the staff who sit in an office all day making up the rules, and have never done a days work on site to know that RCD's can fail...

still agree 17th is over reliant on RCD's.

if people tested them, there wouldnt be an issue, but then we dont need to test an MCB

 
We have had this problem before, so much so that there have been various research in to the failure rates of RCD's.

The last one proved that under proper use and regular testing they performed very good with something like 98% success.

However as we all know in the real world, people do not carry out the regular quaterly checks.

Buiding works where excessive dust has entered the CU, has prevented some RCD's to function correctly, and because it is a mechanical it needs regular movement to prevent any stifffy, sticky actions.

I must admit I was a great fan of bonding, and I did take great pride in doing a good job, with pig tails an all, frowned upon now for giving undue stress on the cable? It makes you wonder don't it?

 
I agree that the office bound suits have placed too much reliance on RCDs , as said , they don't get tested for yonks.

I told my wholesaler that I didn't want their cheapo range of consumer units and would stick with Crabtree, to told that they have more Crabtree RCDs returned than the cheapos !!!

 
I agree that the office bound suits have placed too much reliance on RCDs , as said , they don't get tested for yonks. I told my wholesaler that I didn't want their cheapo range of consumer units and would stick with Crabtree, to told that they have more Crabtree RCDs returned than the cheapos !!!
Because they sell more Crabtree...........?

 
I agree that the office bound suits have placed too much reliance on RCDs , as said , they don't get tested for yonks. I told my wholesaler that I didn't want their cheapo range of consumer units and would stick with Crabtree, to told that they have more Crabtree RCDs returned than the cheapos !!!
I have had a few crabtree failures on new rcd's, and the trip times are slower than the square D on the ones that work.

 
you still have to supplementary bond bathrooms in some circumstances, it is not as straight forward as if circuits RCD'd no supplementary bonding.

 
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