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Safety of electrical appliances


Roger C
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My gites have been completely re-wired by French electricians, one even had the consuel as it was a new installation. Most of the appliances in them are new, but I do use good quality second-hand equipment where appropriate. Also, some items were new when installed, but that was a few years ago. Recently, a guest claimed they got a shock off an electric heater, and questioned if it had been safety tested.

I know that in the workplace (in the UK), things have to be tested once a year and a little sticker put on them to say if they pass or fail. A friend who has a UK holiday cottage told me that it applies to certain rented accommodation as well. I spoke to my electrician about it and he'd never heard of safety testing of appliances.

I've changed the heater in question and will probably take it to the tip. Whilst this guest was OK about it, he could have complained or tried to claim. For my own peace of mind I'd quite like to have all my appliances checked, who do I ask?

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I hope it was just that, but this afternoon I got in touch with an electrical engineer friend in the UK.

Apparently it's called PAT testing in the UK and they use a gadget which automatically checks things out. He thought that the live to earth insulation might be too low, causing an earth leak. I mentioned the earth leakage breaker, and he said it was probably too small a leak to trip that, but might have been big enough to cause a 'tingle'. The heater in question is an oil filled type, don't know if that makes any difference?

Needless to say the aforementioned heater will reside at the local déchetterie as of tomorrow morning.

I'm now a bit concerened about my older elctrical appliances, why don't they do 'PAT' testing here?

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Hi Roger. It might be prudent to check the trip rating of your RCD. In the UK it has to be a maximum of 30mA although I'm sure France is probably different. The mA rating is symbolised by a triangle usually. If it is as low as 30mA then forget it, unless your hands are wet and you are in bare feet on an 'earthy' floor, you wouldn't even feel 30mA and then the trip would operate so fast that you wouldn't even be aware of it. If however it is like the usual 100mA or 500mA which I have seen used, it may be worth putting in combined circuit breakers to cover your outlets with a lower rating.

It sounds to me like static.

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Hi Smiley, Thanks for that. However, since posting this morning I've been doing some research and it seems that RCD's aren't all they're cracked up to be. According to several sites with info on electric shock, the consensus seems to be that passing a current through your body for less than 1 second:

1mA = "threshold of feeling, tingling sensation"

10-20 mA = "onset of sustained muscular contraction"

100-300 mA = "Ventricular fibrillation, fatal if continued"

The average RCD (they say) disconnects after about a half a second. The 'PAT' test in the UK fails most items at any more than 1mA of leakage. Are we relying tooo heavily on our RCDs and ignoring faulty appliances?

Before I consign my suspect heater to the tip, I'm going to get my electrician to test the insulation - just to put my mind at rest. I hope it was just static, but if not and my guest had not been so understanding and put a complaint in to my letting agency, who is to blame? Not the electrician who installed the wiring, as far as he is concerened everything is up to standard. Hmm...?

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Just  to follow up on that, I had my local electrical repair shop check the heater over. He said that there was a fault which had caused some oil to contaminate the electrics. He described this as 'vachement dangereux'.

Bemused by my request to measure the earth leakage (why not just fling it out?) he diligently reported that the resistance measured between phase and earth was 14.78K ohms, which apparently translates to 15.56 mA. Alas, not a simple case of static.

So I suppose the answer to my question is that electricians can test appliances, but there is no such thing as a 'controle'. A bit like going to the dentist in France, you only go if something's broken?

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Therfore Roger you need to get your house electrics checked.

If there was a fault to earth, albeit a small one then for your guest to feel the shock he/she would need to be making contact between the heater and another grounding source and have to have a resistance path lower than your house earth. (path of least resistance)Taking into consideration resistance of skin etc, this would mean that your house earth resistance must be quite high. 

Having said all that it is best to get everything checked as you are a commercial business.

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Just to reiterate Smileys point;

Get your electrics checked, as you have a faulty earth. Your electrician will have an earth resistance tester and the check will take about 2 minutes. If the wiring is new, then the fault will be covered by his guarantee.

There is no "PAT" testing (on a regular basis) in France, but you must bear in mind that you do have a legal responsibility to your guests (and members ofthe public). Your mandatory insurance will cover you, but you could still face a manslaughter charge if it is proved that you knew about a problem and did nothing (or not enough) to fix it.

 

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Thanks Nick & Smiley, exactly my first reaction which is why I had my electrician test the earthing on all properties yesterday afternoon. As you say, a two minute test and thankfully all is in order - no earth fault.

Maybe it's a mystery? But I'm getting the rest of the gear checked anyway. As you say, the responsibility is mine - I'm not taking the risk.

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I am currently checking out a similar problem in my neighbours brasserie.

He reported that the problem started with him getting tingling shocks from the kitchen wine cooler whenever the washing machine was being used, this presumably got worse because now the machine trips the RCD.

So clearly an earth leakage fault in the washing machine but I felt that it showed up a more serious earthing fault, I checked the potential between phase and neutral (230vac) but between earth and neutral I got about 80vac with a corresponding 150vac between live and neutral.

I have yet to check whether the washing machine is still plugged in (I hope that I am not chasing 2 earth leakages!), the next thing that I will do is to disconnect the earthing link whereupon I expect the earth to neutral to rise to 230vac indicating a poor piquet de terre.

If it is that, (I think so as the connection to the piquet has been buried) and I fit a new one I want to do an earth resistance test as my consuel inspector did (I realise that I dont have the flashy meter) as I recall I am certain that he measured the resistance between the earth terminal and the incoming neutral to ensure that it was under 60 ohms. Caqn anyone confirm that is how they check it?

As an aside it always pays to have a pee on the earth piquet the night before the consuel inspection, it works well in my area with chalk soil although I obviously do not reccomend this when there is the combination of faults as in my neighbours case[:D]

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