Why You May Need to Upgrade Your Electrical Safety in an Older Home

Do you consider yourself to be something of a traditionalist? You may shy away from anything modern and may have just purchased a "period" home to live in, but may nevertheless realise that you have to initiate certain improvements in order to make living in your new place practical. In particular, you have to consider electrical repair and safety, as many of these older properties lack some of the up-to-date and crucial modifications. What do you need to look at?

What the Law Says

Government regulators insist that modern-day homes are equipped with electrical safety switches, in order to keep all their inhabitants safe. In fact, the switches must be installed in any property that is intended for the rental market, as well. However, this regulation does not extend to older homes and if you don't have any of these switches fitted, it's a good idea for you to install them anyway.

What the Switches Do

The switches will turn off the power to any circuit instantaneously if a problem materialises and in doing so, they will help to safeguard you and your family from an electric shock. They are designed to detect any unusual "fluctuation" within the circuit and immediately cut power before anything can go wrong. If something like this were to happen and you didn't have a safety switch in place, then you could be unfortunate enough to provide the route to earth, with devastating consequences.

How to Choose

If you want to get a switch fitted, you have three different types to choose from.

Being Selective

You can be selective and simply install a temporary, or portable switch if you simply want to protect an area where somebody will be working with power tools. Some people choose to plug these in when they're working outside and you can pick these up quite simply at a local hardware store.

The Better Approach

If you want to protect the whole home, however, you need to get a qualified electrician to help you. You can choose to put the safety switches at the switchboard itself and when a fault materialises only the circuit in question will be shut off, while others around the home will still operate.

You could opt to replace individual power outlets with safety switches and in this case, the individual appliances plugged into that power outlet will be protected.

If you really want to be as safe as possible, you could choose to install safety switches at both the switchboard and the outlet level, for total protection.

Getting It Done Properly

Bring in a qualified electrician to help you, as they will need to provide you with a certificate of compliance for all new installations. This will give you peace of mind as well, as all of your safety switches will have been installed in accordance with specified federal standards.


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