Wiring Accessories
New Wiring Regu…Opportunities
With the 18th Edition of the IET Wiring Regulations come new business avenues. Whether that’s a need for an increased number of devices per installation or new devices entirely, it’s important to understand where the opportunity lies, explains Jim Hutchinson (pictured), National Sales Manager for Wylex.
T
he 18th Edition Wiring Regulations call for overvoltage protection, considerations for the unwanted
tripping of RCDs (residual-current device), additional protection by 30mA RCD and for devices for protection against the risk of fire. Wylex consumer units and devices provide solutions for each of these in turn, making them ‘must stock’ items. Currently, you can use either the 17th or the 18th Edition regulations, but from the 1st January 2019 the new regulations must be used in all designs and installations. The 18th Edition of the IET Wiring Regulations, and the changes therein, present some new opportunities for the industry. These create further safety measures for installers to provide for their customers as well as a focus on energy efficiency. Wylex (part of Electrium) is the market leader
in residential circuit protection, with the largest range of consumer units and devices. This gives designers and installers the flexibility to create an almost infinite variety of systems, tailored to individual applications and blending with any surroundings. Wylex has a varied range of solutions to help installers get the best out of their next project. With so many reasons to choose Wylex the question is, why choose anything less?
Overvoltage protection Certain circumstances warrant mandatory overvoltage protection, but for all other situations a risk assessment is necessary. If no risk assessment is carried out, however, overvoltage protection must be installed, and in single unit dwellings the final decision is made on a value judgement. Installations will need to use SPDs (surge
protection devices) in order to meet this requirement, and likewise, designers and
ewnews.co.uk Wylex Consumer Unit with AFD devices ●Continued over December 2018 electrical wholesaler | 17
installers will have to include more SPDs in their installations.
Unwanted tripping of RCDs To avoid the unwanted tripping of RCDs from PE currents leaking through the protective conductor during normal (non fault) operating conditions, the designer must ensure that the accumulated PE current is less than 30% of the RCD rating (regulation 531.3.2). This may be difficult to achieve, but
fortunately the regulations provide an alternative – which is to use an individual RCBO (residual- current circuit breaker with overcurrent protection) on each circuit. Each RCBO would
then be powering fewer items of equipment and avoiding excessive PE currents in order to maintain power continuity and occupier safety.
Additional protection Today’s typical domestic installation will have 30mA RCD protection on every circuit, especially as another new regulation in the 18th Edition (411.3.4) has extended the use of 30mA RCDs to include all lighting circuits in dwellings. This means that that each circuit in a consumer unit needs to have several types of protection against a variety of potential faults. For example, each circuit in a consumer unit needs to have several types of protection against
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