Two assumptions there John. You know what they say about assuming!
Do RCDs save lives
- Thread starter AndyPRK
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There's nothing wrong with making statements which are dependent upon stated assumptions - I spend much of my working life doing that! However, as you say, they are assumptions, which is why I went on to ask you if they were correct ...
If that is what you were saying/implying, then I'm not sure that it is much a let-off for the designers to say that that fires might not have resulted from their design errors if RCDs had been there to protect against such incompetence!
Kind Regards, John
You're assuming (again!) that there was a 'designer'.
Yes, many states have retired their electric chairs now (it was never more than about half which used it anyway), and of the handful which still have it, it's no longer the primary method in any of them, so use has been pretty minimal the last few years:
http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/views-executions?method[0]=Electrocution&page=5
But back from that tangent.....
And the NEC is getting just as carried away with GFCI protection here as well, not to mention the latest "wonder cure," the AFCI.
Yes, that's another good point to consider when assessing the overall benefits versus drawbacks. Has an RCD tripping unnecessarily ever actually caused a fatality (somebody falling in the dark etc.) which would otherwise never have happened? It's certainly plausible, even if not especially likely.
Or stopping smoking. By the government's own figures, aren't the number of smoking-related deaths in the U.K. each year supposed to be well up into the 6-figure range? So if you wanted to really save a lot of lives, just completely ban the manufacture, importation and sale of cigarettes. I think we all know why that won't happen.
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I think that's probably getting a bit pedantic, given that circuits don't design themselves
. If you prefer, substitute "the person who created the part of the installation in question"!As I see it, if an RCD would have prevented the fires, then I can think of only two real possibilities:
1...The OPD was not appropriate to protect the cable
2...The cable was adequately protected by the OPD, but the equipment to which it was connected was not. In that case, either the equipment did not have adequate/any internal protection and/or someone ignored MIs which required appropriate external protection.
I would have thought that in neither of those cases would the installation of an RCD be the 'proper', or ideal, solution (even if it may have prevented fires!), do you? (any more than I think that requiring CUs to be made out of 'non-combustible' material is the 'proper or ideal' solution to the problem of connections within CUs overheating and causing fires CUs
).Kind Reagrds, John
That would certainly be the best way to 'save a lot of lives', in one sense (prevent many 'premature deaths'), but ...
Indeed, and not only the reason you're presumably thinking about - you're now living in a country which once tried it with alcohol, without any apparent long-term success!
Kind Regards, John
I belive the EU will be banning slim cigarettes, small packs of tobacco and cigarettes, menthol cigarettes and a few more things in 2016
We won't cure the tobacco addicts, they all know they're going to die early and refuse to change.
We should however put a lot more effort into preventing the industry recruiting new customers to replace the ones it kills. I understand most addicts were users by the time they were 12 years old.
You can tell when a measure is suggested that will cut usage (e.g. banning smoking in pubs, plain wrappers) because the industry kicks up a fuss and says it is a terrible idea.
You have to be a special sort of person to willingly join an industry that kills millions of its customers.
We should however put a lot more effort into preventing the industry recruiting new customers to replace the ones it kills. I understand most addicts were users by the time they were 12 years old.
You can tell when a measure is suggested that will cut usage (e.g. banning smoking in pubs, plain wrappers) because the industry kicks up a fuss and says it is a terrible idea.
You have to be a special sort of person to willingly join an industry that kills millions of its customers.
When I was at school the teachers and kids used to smoke together behind the maths building, and the headmaster used to walk through the school smoking his pipe. How things have changed!
We should certainly try to prevent those 'new customers' arising, but I don't think you can any longer blame the industry for 'recruiting' them ... given the widespread 'ban' on advertising and the regulations that have been introduced in relation to packaging, labelling and display of the products in shops etc., I can't really see that they have any means of 'promotion' left. If these companies still have 'Marketing Departments', I can't imagine what they do (other than crosswords!), at least as far as the UK market is concerned.
At something approaching 7% of adults, the proportion of UK 'adults' who smoke cannabis (albeit not necessarily very often) is currently around a third of the number who smoke tobacco - and that has been achieved, and persists, in the absence of any overt marketing. I therefore think that smoking (anything) is (now) primarily a sociological/educational thing, rather than any longer being an industry-led phenomenon.
Kind Regards, John
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If you'll forgive a minor diversion, that reminds me of a little story from one of my contacts here.
Apparently he was working in a house in San Francisco a few years ago, one of the old townhouses with little space around it. He decided that the easiest place to drive a new ground rod was at a spot in the garage floor, breaking through the concrete and going into what he thought was solid ground beneath. He said he was surprised when after driving the rod a few feet it suddenly disappeared completely into the ground with a clatter from below as the earth around it gave way, and with a flashlight he could see some sort of room below. The owner knew nothing of it, and it seems that after a lot of exploration and figuring that there must have been a way into it at one time they eventually found some sort of boarded over access to stairs down to this forgotten basement room.
Yes - They'd discovered a long-abandoned speak-easy! He said the old bar was still there, even some bottles, as if it had just been hastily vacated and the access to it blocked and hidden without even taking the time to clear the room out.
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This was without question a case where an RCD would have prevented the death, however also education would have also prevented the death clearly when it is sparking you don't mop up the water step one should have been turn off power.
The case is well documented and it seems it was due to a whole list of failures.
1) Excess cable left inside stud wall.
2) No safety cut out on immersion heater thermostat.
3) Glue missed from the pipe work of overpressure overflow tun dish.
4) Lack of care when plaster fitted the plaster boards.
5) Use of semi skilled labour.
6) Poor advice given to semi skilled labourer when he found a fault.
The list goes on. We see reference to road safety fitting a 30 mA RCD is like putting up a 30 MPH speed limit when it was 50 after an accident where the driver was doing 90 MPH. OK the death would have been prevented by a 30 mA at 40 ms RCD however if the rest of the checks had been done including a proper inspection and test before energising these would have also prevented the death.
So to nitty gritty the death would have been prevented by correctly doing the inspection and testing. And fitting a RCD would only help if it worked and since the rest was not inspected and tested correctly we must assume the RCD would also not be inspected and tested so could have failed to protect in exactly the same way as the earth bonding failed to protect. It could have been faulty.
Even a 5 year old child can be trained not to run out into the road. With the extra 4 years training moving from leaving school at 14 to leaving at 18 if the schools can't educate people not to work around sparking items and instead to switch off power first then it's rather a poor show for the schools. I still can't believe in this day and age that children are not taught the basics at school. They still leave rural schools without a driving licence.
I don't think it's the schools' responsibility Eric, it's the parents'.
Add "without giving any thought to the circuit design".
There is a third possibility John. Think about what the OCPD needs to operate...
The Poll is flawed, RCD's along with RCBO's have the potential to save lives in certain cases under the right conditions, although that does not mean they always will. RCD's (& RCBO's) add an extra element of safety in the larger scheme of things, but should not be relied on to save lives.
Saving lives or more accurately reducing fatality's through electrocution should be done on good planning, design and implementation what can incorporate the use of RCD's along with using things like using SELV sources, carrying out good practices/intuition, having effective earthing, etc...
In essence; Just life life jackets can save people from drowning, they will not always do so and can not be guaranteed to do so.
Saving lives or more accurately reducing fatality's through electrocution should be done on good planning, design and implementation what can incorporate the use of RCD's along with using things like using SELV sources, carrying out good practices/intuition, having effective earthing, etc...
In essence; Just life life jackets can save people from drowning, they will not always do so and can not be guaranteed to do so.
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