Unveiled: Major RCD Blunder in Heat Pump Installs
An eFIXX investigation reveals that heat pump installers are routinely installing the WRONG type of RCDs…
…we meet the apprentice electrician who’s earning an annual salary of £77,000…
…and, is it a bulb or a lamp? We shed light on the big debate…
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Show Notes 🗒️
Type B MCBs and RCDs, Clearing Up the Confusion 👉 • Type B MCBs and RCDs, ...
Firestopping of service penetrations document👉 www.thefis.org/membership-hub...
Check out the winners of the eFIXX 30 Under 30 awards 👉 awards.efixx.co.uk/2023-30-un...
Bulb or lamp? 👉 • Post
Download the new LumXpert app 👉 hub.efixx.co.uk/lumxpert-ENW
Check out the Robus Scholar 👉 • ❌ Don't Make This Glar...
Is the TIS MFT pro worth the hype? 👉 • IS This Electrical Ins...
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Time Stamps ⏱
00:00 Electrical News Weekly 22nd April 2024
00:39 Installers fitting wrong type of RCD in heat pump installs
02:57 Guidance published to help maintain fire barriers in buildings
03:35 Apprentice electrician with salary of £77000 a year
04:36 Check out this years eFIXX 30 Under 30
04:56 Do you call it a bulb or a lamp?
06:15 Download the new LumXpert App
07:15 This weeks question of the week
07:59 Is the TIS MFT pro worth the hype?
08:34 What happened to Joe's beard?
09:23 Thanks to our premium partners
10:46 Challenge words and winners
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Luckily we have the IET to ensure we have clear labelling of protective devices, consistent performance of AFDD with standardised status LEDs and tightly controlled standards so we can swap out protective devices without throwing away the consumer unit every 3 years. Also the IET have reassuring decided that you can only get killed by a PEN fault from a EV and not a heat pump or garden class I lighting. Keep up the good work guys.
Watch this space...
Labelling of RCDs is clear. The symbols are defined.
@@efixxinverter drives are becoming standard practice in things like washing machines & have measured higher DC
Really the designer/manufacturer should be quoting the DC currents imparted by their loads, it shouldn’t be for an installer to measure the DC currents and to fit an appropriate RCD type.
It’s in the instructions
@@efixx Is it? I can't find any reference to leakage currents in the Vaillant Arotherm Plus Installation Manual - That's a very common model of heat pump.
@@yngndrw. So it looks like @efixx has uncovered a glaring omission in supplier documentation. It can't be possible for an installer to make these determinations and it's likely that products will have a wide spread of leakage values.
Please note the issue with DC voltages is if the heat pump has INVERTER control which a lot of the small ones don't have so no need for a type B! So installers need to look for the word INVERTER which the heat pump usually has in big letters as it is expensive & is more efficient! It has been a bugbear of mine about inverters as used in other air compressors! Also what about washing machines as these use inverters now!!!! I did put a type B in for my unit but I will test for DC voltage & current backflow at the weekend!
@@Electronics-Rocks Type B is something I speculated about becoming a requirement on another youtube channel. A product with motors doesn't need to have the word inverter in it to be in the potential DC leakage class anymore. So many things have variable speed motor control these days it's essentially everywhere, the days of simple line operated motors are in the past. Standard small 3 phase motors with VFD style drive, multi-phase BLDCs, even PWM'd basic motors. Washing machines and clothes dryers are a perfect example. Unless you shop at the super-low price end of the market, all of them employ one of those classes of motor drive yet not a single mention of 'inverter' in the description / title of most of them.
If an inverter heatpump needs a type B RCD, then so does a fridge/freezer or aircon unit, which typically also have inverter drives these days. Smooth DC leakage from these is pretty unlikely, compared with products with big HV batteries.
Fridge freezers are generally on/off motor control with no control over the speed. Washing machines and dishwashers often have inverters as they need to change the speed of the motor. The IET also say that Type A is suitable for inverters as well as Type B.
Frankly if anyone is desiging a modern inverter that exceeds 6mA of common mode leakage then they need to go away and do it again properly! Absolutely no reason not to be able to make an EMC approved inverter for any low power domestic product these days......
"Lamp" is something you usually want to do to the plasterers on site! 😂
😂 Oh, come on now, we all just want to get along. 😃
Isn't it high time the IET changed nomenclature of MCB/RCBOs to CURVE B, C or D to reduce confusion with TYPE A, AC, F & B RCDs? Maybe that's asking too much, even though they regularly re-name everything else in BS7671.
Yes, yes it is
Collywobbles and cantilever, also its a lamp, unless it's in a lamp because that just gets confusing! Great edition of the ENW as always Joe, and thanks for the goody bag, it finally arrived 👏👏👍
So glad it arrived safely, the post office lady was a little distracted last week so I was worried! 😂
I've installed Steibel Eltron heat pumps and it specifically requests type B RCDs in the installation manual
Well done for reading the manual!
One should always check the installers manual. Many are ok with RCDs Type F, some are even suitable for Type A (internal DC fault current monitoring or other additional protection present). Installing Type B by default might be a general solution, but a costly one, so consulting the manual can reduce costs. Thanks for pushing the issue to a greater audiance!
Great news weekly as always Joe. The two words this week are Colliewobbles and plumage
Greetings, love the fascinating info you give out. Were the words, 'colly wobbles and cantilever limb'? Regards from sunny Southend-on-Sea 😊
thank you very much. The selected words of the week are collywobble and worms . . It's really fun to see the electricity news, I appreciate it very much. And as always thank you very much
Good guesses as always! 😃
Many years ago I visited an egg farm with about 8 fans each controlled by a small inverter drive. The distribution board was a standard Hager unit with an RCD, which kept tripping if more than 2 fans were connected. I advised they fit an Si type RCD which included immunity to the superimposed DC component arising from the EMC filters on the inverters. At the time these weren't widely available so I just left them to order one and fit it, in the hope it would fit in the Hager board.
How many engineers does it take to change a light bulb? Well, technically it's a lamp.
😂😂
MCB out of the consumer unit, into a Type B RCBO in a separate enclosure.
Yes, if you can't fit or obtain a type B RCD for the consumer unit. I have noticed a tendency for some properties to be fitted with type AC. And I suspect they are far more common than people realise. And I have observed electricians doing EICRs on properties and not picking up on it, which quite frankly is appalling.
Many washing machines feature inverter driven motors , will they affect a/c RCD operation ?
Yup, that's one potential source of DC leakage in a property. 😬
Read the article by the IET on how to select the correct type of RCD.
Yes but the Niceic say it’s only a c3 on an Eicr so you can pass the installation. Got told off for putting c2.
@@smiffysmiffy123 thats my concern as whether it makes installs unsafe and needing a C2
Phillips and osram seem to refer to them as bulbs crompton use term lamps. Amazon list mostly as bulbs . Do light bulbs direct need to change their trading name. So is it humphrey davis in 1806 with his arc lamp or Edison with his light bulb?
mail online is not a credible source
Yur, always feel a bit grubby when one of those stories comes up. 😂
@@efixx was in a feisty mood yesterday lol, had to deal with an earth to live (sorry Gary, CPC to line) fault. As a result of this i now know the resistance of a slug at 500 volts is 0.007Megohms :D
Oh yeah, I think I saw you post that somewhere, was it LinkedIn? 🤔
Collywobbles & cantilever 😜 I get the feeling next week will be harder! Interesting episode, though ⚡ Crazy salary for an apprentice... 😲
You might be surprised Marcus, I've just popped them into this week's script and it was tricky....😂
😂 Looking forward to Monday's episode! 💪
Most modern heat pump brands have a 6mA declaration.
Nobody is addressing the issue of where the dc current goes after the type b rcd . It flows back through all the other type A RCDs on the installation .
No it doesn't. Try analysing the circuits to understand why. Don't guess. Work it out.
@@deang5622 nobody knows yet dean least of all you .
Thanks for another great news update, Joe. Re: RCDs - how to choose the 'correct' type, can I recommend the BEAMA RCD GUIDE (latest edition is Oct 2020) or the Eaton RCD Application Guide? Both very helpful documents. Won't post links here or KZhead will bin this comment.
I can recommend the guide produced by the IET in September 2019, titled 'Which RCD Type?" Very clear and concise.
I just bought a new washing machine that says 'prosmart inverter' on the front. Is that going to blind my type A RCD??
Type A should he okay - type AC not
It could contribute some DC leakage current... 😬
Another question about heat pump installations: should pen fault protection be added? I know it's not required. It seems the same potential hazard exists as for EVs on charge in that there's a big piece of metal connected to the main earthing terminal sitting outside where a person standing on the ground can touch it. No RCD will help you if the pen goes high impedance... It's probably a very small risk & may well be deamed low enough to be acceptable. Any thoughts?
I’ve been told board manufacturers are bring out Pen fault mainswitches as you are correct .
@@persona250 Devices to fit in a cu are available, just not yet mandatory for hp installations. I wonder if IET will bring in an amendment?
@@alanjewell9550I doubt it. People go up to and touch car bodies. They have to in order to gain entry. They don't go up and touch heat pumps. 474 broken PEN faults in 2021.
Just a question from foreign country foreigner: Is the company "Lewden" a part of the Italian company "Palazzoli"? I found many packages in internet which wrote both companies on it.
Yes, I believe Palazzoli bought Lewden a few years ago. So they're known as Lewden Palazzoli in the UK, although a lot of people still just say Lewden. 😊 Thanks for watching and commenting. 👍
Interesting, it would be interesting to see some measurements of DC leakage from real world heat pump installations? Has anyone done this?
Hi, I am a tech engineer for Stiebel Eltron and one of my coleagues has tested an rcbo with a compressor running, and wont trip on a test.
@@andyprobert7040 interesting, thanks for sharing. Was that a type A RCBO? Do your instructions specify type B?
Yes our instructions specify a type B Rcd. Or mostly i train the electicians to install with a method without RCD on the compressor circuit. But its important to remember that any RCD up stream is also affected.
4:59 Can I call it a Bulb Lamp!? (As opposed to a "fluorescent" tube lamp or a candle lamp?)
Joe I received a marxman and two eFIXX stickers on Saturday and I have no idea what or what I did to deserve them. I am just wondering if you know.?
Hi Sean, you won the challenge word competition a while back, I think it was around December time. I'm just getting caught up with prizes. 😊
Oh wow thank you so much I really appreciate it. . 👍
collywobbles and mitts
Great guesses, tune in on Monday to see if you were right!
What’s more concerning is the fact that a heat pump sat on rubber feet should (in my opinion) be treated the same as an EV charger and have a dedicated earth rod (because they don’t have open PEN detection). What’s to stop the outer case rising to 1/2 line voltage in the even of an open PEN fault in the supply?
So what’s the minimum wage for an electrical apprentice over the age of 21?
I still don't get the Torque Calibrated Arm.!?
We did a whole campaign on doing up electrical connections to the right torque settings. Lots of electricians responded by saying they've got torque settings in their arms. We tested a few to see if they were right... they weren't! Hence, there's no such thing as a torque calibrated arm! 😂
@@efixx Oh I am well aware. 55 years plus in the business, never posessed a torque Screwdriver, never used one. No fires or burned connections ever. I know a few who don't use them. But hey, what do I know..
It's really great that our standards do not require an RCD for permanently installed devices.
I will leave you to consider why that is. Try thinking about it.
@@deang5622 Simple, there is no need for RCD for such devices in our system.
Tern collywobbles?
Collywobbles and Cantilevered 🙂
Sounds like the mildest cuss-words ever! 😂
@@efixx 🤣
4:56 Cory Mac!? Lol
Every new build heat pump installer are requiring a type c
make the best kind of rcd (type b) the standard.. also anyone mistaking the B curve with 'type b' is not fit for purpose, yes i am feisty
Unfortunately the type B RCD is currently huge, expensive and not actually required in all situations. Hopefully we're helping people learn the difference between devices. 😊
Collywobbles and cantilever
collywobbles and illumination
Cost Adel & Collywobbles (too simple?).
We'll find out next week. 😃
சிறப்பு👍
Thank you. 😊
The beard - did it involve a sneeze whilst trimming, or maybe a cat clawing at an inopportune moment?
Collywobbles and Cantilevered
cantilever and collywobbles , got my goody bag 😁👍
Yay! Glad it came through. 😃 Thanks for your patience!
Lamp, bulb, globe or Luminaire? I have heard it all.
Cantilever and plumage
Collywobbles and cantilevered?
Great guesses, listen to next week's show to see if you're right. 😁
Bulb? Lamp? GLOBE!!
Collywobbles?
Type A are cheap, type F are affordable and type B are expensive. As far as I know, type AC are not allowed.
Hmm, Passionfruit one word eh!!!???
Sorry Mark, an unintentional redherring... 😂
Don’t worry, I had to Google it to make sure 🤣
Collywobbles and cantilever!
Great guesses, make sure you listen on Monday to see if you're right.
Collywobbles and Envelope
I'm running out of different prizes for you Mark. 😂
Two arrived this week, in separate packages…you should have saved the postage and sent them together 😜
collywobble, plumage
collywobbles and boyscouts
It's a light bulb.
Is it though? 🤔😂
@@efixx Yes. It's in every dictionary!
Why so late doing
Colywobbles and cantilever
It goes back installers. The heat pump only or solar only, generally aren’t electricians or have any “general” electrical knowledge apart from what they do day to day.
collywobbles, cantilevered
Punch cantilevered
Heat pump installers getting a B on their exam results.
The shortage of skilled labour in Australia at the moment is causing some stupidly generous remuneration packages. The Queensland government is essentially giving away buckets of money while people in the real world are doing it tough. Imagine getting paid an additional $AUD1000 a week simply because your job site is 50km away from your home. Yes, that's the sort of insanity that is going on down here.
kzhead.info/sun/qsyYhZyOpaWLjH0/bejne.html .------------ Just another debate.
Nearly a four candles moment
Like the 2 dutch words ijskast(icebox) and koelkast(cool cupboard. ie fridge). You will know in an instant the background of the person as the icebox was for the wealthy. Both mean the same thing.
😂 Very insightful. 😃