electrical injury's

[maguire]

As a matter of interest I went to the ROSPA website initially I was interested in accident figures pre and post RCD requirements unfortunatly the latest firgures are for 2002-2003 but makes interesting reading
the highest number of home accidents happen to the age group 15-64, 99 in total, but once you reach 65 it drops to 3, there was 163 in total for that year, there was 12 fatal and 124 major injuries in employed people and 3 and 10 in self employed, so the stats suggest start work at 65 and be self employed, I know statistics can be maniulated to prove just about any argument but I wonder what the firgures would be if I pusue this as to my original interest, Iam awaitng contact from rospa on this.
DM

 

[ColJack]

the fact that it's higher for 15-64 year olds suggests that these are work related rather than home related..

whether this is purely down to the fact that even minor accidents all go into the books at work and your average joe DIYer / SE worker doesn't report it is another question

 

[maguire]

The 15 -65 are from home injury's but thats only the reported ones
the work ones do not define age but on further reading Dangerous occurances involving plant that comes into contact with overhead lines exceeding 200V were 188 these did not results in death or injury as far as I understand
short cicuits which resullted in stopage of the plant for more that 24 hours were 287 I cant quite get a handle on how the two figures relate though
Dev

 

[ColJack]

diggers going through underground power lines .. they're not included in the overhead line statistics but are still included in the "bust it for 24 hours" statistic..

like you said, you can manipulate statistics to show whatever you want.. that's why all these adverts are all strange numbers of people surveyed to get the percentage they want to show..


an accident "in the home" includes people working in the home who are working for larger companies such as the coincil and so have to report any accidents..

 

[maguire]

As I said it's more a personal quest to see if the ubiquitous RCD is actully the panacea it's trumpeted to be,similarly with the refrigeration industry with now bewildering range of refrigerants at first is was to eliminate HFC's now the gas manufacturers are producing a bewilldering range of purpose specific refigerants on the back of ridding the world of R22 R502 and R12
Opp almost a rant
Dev

 

[ColJack]

ah you got to love R407 though..

we made a CO² air con once.. some hefty pipes involved there.. lot higher pressures too..

 

[maguire]

r 407 I belive thats a high pressure too? I gave out a set of guages which were lost and the guy bought me a new set with a compound low side gauge with 407 on the scale and looking at the evap pressures in comprason with 134a quite bit higher I think. C02 god high yes
Just starting to do more fridge work concentrated nore on PAT PIR but once the word got out jings I will have to buy more gear
Dev

 

[LiamPope]

As a matter of interest I went to the ROSPA website initially I was interested in accident figures pre and post RCD requirements unfortunatly the latest firgures are for 2002-2003 but makes interesting reading
the highest number of home accidents happen to the age group 15-64, 99 in total, but once you reach 65 it drops to 3, there was 163 in total for that year, there was 12 fatal and 124 major injuries in employed people and 3 and 10 in self employed, so the stats suggest start work at 65 and be self employed, I know statistics can be maniulated to prove just about any argument but I wonder what the firgures would be if I pusue this as to my original interest, Iam awaitng contact from rospa on this.
DM

Are these figures normalised - accidents per 100,000 people or something like that? Otherwise what a load of meaningless nonsense. Of course there are more accidents in the 15-64 range than over 64 - there are more people! Likewise with employed and self employed.

 

[ebee]

Statistics can be used to show that 50% of the worlds population is half.

Actually there is a far more dangerous dilema than statistics, one little word can be overused and misunderstood/manipulated so often , that word is "Average"

"Which average do you mean?" should be the first retort to anyone quoting things such as average.
Mean, Median, Mode, RMS along with SD can easily give a misrepresentation on their own unless we understand the whole picture.

Take a statement such as "most people have more than the average number of X"

Then we explain that X = digits , ie fingers & toes (including thumbs),
the world average is approx 19.5 yet normally you'd expect normal folk to have 20

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I have an above average number of legs.

 

[ebee]

Back to the OP.

Well fully functioning RCDs might be expected to save 95% of the population (this means 5% will not be saved)

The failure rate of an RCD might well be about 7%

That might mean that somewhere abouts 11.5% of the population are really still at risk and 100% might still get a shock but not be electrocuted.

Truly wonderfull things RCDs and it would be madness not to fit them where possible, but they are not the answer to all ills.

 

[ebee]

Helo Rolf

 

[Spark123]

the highest number of home accidents happen to the age group 15-64, 99 in total, but once you reach 65 it drops to 3,

imo 15-64 is a too big a group to be of any statistical use for this, if they give it in 5 or 10 yr sections or % population by age group it will be a bit more useful.

 

[maguire]

Like I said at the outset stats can be manipulated to prove any thing, I only quoted the ROSPA data.
Dev

 

[1john]

The one problem is that you seem to be presuming that everyone went and got an RCD following the change of regs, or am I mistaken??

I would think that a tiny percentage of installations in the UK actually comply with the 17th Edition, and prob only marginally more comply with the 16th.