Why is it dangerous?

Electrical insulation cannot be perfect, therefore, during the operation of the electricity consumer, even in full service, current leakage always occurs, the magnitude of which is minimal and does not pose a danger to humans. In the event of a partial or complete violation of isolation, the values ​​of leakage current increase and can pose a serious threat to human health and life. Simply put, if insulation resistance is lost when touching the body of an electrical appliance, cable sheath, plug or socket, water pipe or heating system, wall of a house or apartment, the human body will act as a conductor through which leakage currents will pass to the ground. The consequences can be very sad, even fatal.

Do not forget that the presence of an electrical leak in the house and apartment can affect the consumption of electrical energy. In the presence of this phenomenon in the wiring, even if all consumers are disconnected, the electricity meter will record the electricity consumption.

Distinctive signs

Having an understanding of what an electricity leak is, the causes of its occurrence and the serious consequences accompanying it, it does not interfere with the owner of a house or apartment to know how to identify electrical equipment with low insulation resistance. First of all, you should firmly understand if you feel a hidden effect of electricity when touching an electrical appliance, pipes or walls in a room, or a current leakage occurs in the electrical network of a house or apartment. Loss of insulation resistance can occur both in faulty consumers of electricity and in wiring. A common sign of danger is whenan electric shock occurs in the bathroom.

How to determine if the device is damaged?

Check leakage current with voltage indicator. This verification method can be used if the device under test has a metal casing. In case of doubts about the serviceability and safety of using the device, the presence or absence of leakage can be checked using an indicator screwdriver, designed to search for a phase in the network. To do this, when the consumer is on, touch the tip of the screwdriver to the metal case of the electrical device, even if the phase detector is weakly detected, the consumer under test is faulty and dangerous.

Current leakage into the housing in a device with a metal casing can be caused not only by loss of insulation resistance. This may be caused by an open connection for grounding the metal body of the product, if a grounding system is provided.

Important!  During inspection, care should be taken to prevent touching the metal body of the product and the tip of the screwdriver with your hands.

Check with a multimeter. Insulation testing with a multimeter is only performed on de-energized equipment. Before checking, the meter should be switched to resistance measurement mode at 20 megohms. Fix a multi-purpose probe on the body of the product under test, and the second one on one end of the plug connection. The same operation must be performed for the second contact pin and with the polarity of the probes replaced. In operating electrical equipment, infinity must be displayed on the scale of the measuring device. Otherwise, the electrical equipment cannot be used, and must either be returned for repair or disposed of. Multiple Instruction Manual We also reviewed the website.

Check with megger. The verification procedure is the same as with a multimeter. Using a megger device, you must remember that when turning the handle at the output of this device, a voltage of 500 to 1000 volts is generated, which can permanently disable low-current electronic components.

Troubleshoot wiring problems

Leakage in the hidden wiring of a house or apartment can cause electric shock during plastering or wallpapering. How to detect them without the involvement of specialists and the use of special devices. There is a proven method to check for leaks in the hidden wiring of a house or apartment using a transistor radio that has medium and long longitudinal reception ranges. Before checking, it is necessary to turn off all electricity consumers. Next, you need to walk with the receiver, pre-tuned to the frequency on which radio stations are not broadcast, in the immediate vicinity of the walls in places of wiring. When approaching the problem area, the speaker will start making a distinctive sound.

Treatments

In order to reliably exclude cases of electrical injury in the house, it is necessary to provide the household electrical network with leakage protection , for which residual current circuit breakers (RCDs) and differential circuit breakers are currently widely used .

An alternative is to use a differential automatic that combines an RCD and a circuit breaker.Difavtomat will also help in protecting against a negative event, because the network will turn on immediately and activate power in case of danger.

So we examined what a current leak is in an apartment and a house, what are the reasons for its occurrence, as well as protection measures at home. We hope the information is useful and interesting for you!