BASIC RULES TO ELIMINATE ELECTRICAL FIRE/INCIDENT IN FACILITIES.

Based on statistics, electrical fire is one of the major sources of fire in facilities. Most electrical fire is easily avoidable with sound electrical design, installation and workmanship. MEP requires a sound understanding of principles codes and standards. Most of the facility/technical related issues in as built/industrial environment are as a result of non-conformance. These are hard skills required to succeed as a business in as built, construction, Industrial and Facilities. In this piece we provide some insights on electrical best practices.

Below provides guide and best practices:

• Use of properly rated circuit breakers:These are used for short circuit fault and overload protection and are found in facility electrical distribution boards (DBs) but most often are not properly rated to act accordingly. During short circuit, huge heat is generated due to high fault current leading to cable insulation failure and this degenerate to fire if not interrupted in time.
• Rule of Thumb:Circuit breaker ampacity size should be rated 80% of conductor size. E.g. if conductor is rated 100Amps, circuit breaker should be rated 80Amps to allow for good sensitivity. This also provides cover against overload. Circuit breaker short circuit handling capacity in KA should be well matched with envisaged fault during design to avoid total destruction of protective device when short circuit fault occurs.

• Use of RCDs: Residual current device detects earth leakages and acts accordingly. Most of the electrical shocks and fire result when there’s a break in current flow and current flows to non designated path. The RCDs senses this and acts accordingly. Human experiences shock when the current is 30mA and above, therefore an RCD with sensitivity of 30mA coupled with short circuit protection (RCCB) is a sure immunity against electric shock/fire in facilities once placed in sectionalized DB as main breaker. The RCD is a sure bet for 100% health on electrical installation.

• Sound installation/good workmanship: Nothing compares to sound installation and workmanship which seek to apply best practices.
• Use of quality materials.
• Proper coordination of electrical protective devices:with proper coordination only the faulty circuit downstream is isolated while the healthy circuit remains available. This increases reliability of installation.