GreenBrook has relaunched its brand of PowerBreaker RCDs by increasing the range to offer the most comprehensive selection of products on the market.
PowerBreaker was the first to create the RCD (Residual Current Device) back in 1975 where they used their in-house expertise to produce the very first RCD to be totally housed within a 13A plug.
RCDs are electrical devices which when incorporated into an electrical installation, will provide the highest degree of protection against the risks of electrocution and fire caused by earth faults.
The 17th Edition of Building Regulations recommends the use of RCD for sockets as well as for inside consumer units, but, despite this recommendation – there are still approximately 13 million homes in the UK that have no RCD protection at all. Approximately 10% of all fires are caused by electrical faults and many of these could be prevented by using RCDs.
RCDs are available in different variants, namely Passive or Active, and can be used for different applications. Many people are unaware of the differences between these two products and do not understand where best to use what.
For Passive RCDs a typical application would be a refrigerator or freezer that would return to their regular mode of operation as soon as the power supply resumes normal operation. Passive RCDs are also useful to use for sockets in hard to reach places where having to gain access to re-set an RCD would be tricky, however where protection is still required.
An active RCD is better used for electrical equipment such as hedge trimmers or power tools where unexpected restarting of the equipment could present a danger to the user in a power cut situation.
PowerBreaker 10mA RCDs are the latest products to hit the market and are the super sensitive products. These RCDs trip earlier as they are more sensitive to a fault current flowing, breaking the circuit before the trip occurs further upstream and takes out the nuisance to the consumer of the RCD tripping – often then cutting out other faultless items.
These RCDs have been deemed safer for use in areas with young children, such as nurseries and schools but also for use in places with more vulnerable people like hospitals or old people’s homes where a chance of electric shock could be fatal. All public access areas would be advised to use 10mA as all types of people can pass through these areas.
