AFDD!? RCBO!? Any advice please

[Hollies2019]

Good morning all,



My first post on here! Be kind



I have had a customer come to me who has a care home for the elderly. I have not carried out the EICR but have been given the sheets. They have had an EICR carried out in December 2020, the EICR has failed on a couple of things one been NO RCD protection on maybe 10 socket circuits spread over about 5 consumer units.



The owner would like the remedial work to be carried out and all C2s & C3s to be sorted. One of the consumer units is only a 4 way and has 2 circuits that require remedial work so I will most likely just replace that consumer unit. Usually I would get an RCBO install that in place of the MCB but with the new amendment will I need to replace it with an AFDD now ?

One of the consumer units is about 20 years old plastic MEM with about 15 ways which I only have 1 socket circuit on. Would I even get an AFDD for this ? Another one is a MERLIN GERIN 3 Phase board with 1 socket circuit in. Again.. would I get an AFDD for this ?

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.

 

[pc1966]

Well AM2 is now in force and section 421.1.7 has the requirements of AFDD use where it has them as a mandatory requirement for care homes. If you were simply making a repair then it would not be needed, but if you are fixing inspection problems that are basically bringing the installation up to date then it looks like they are needed.

I would be very surprised if you could get AFDD for the MEM or M-G boards, though @westward10 is the person to ask.

For the plastic MEM board you would probably be better & cheaper to look at simply replacing it with the likes of Wylex or Fusebox who have tolerably priced AFDD along with similar RCBO, etc. Their compact units are SP+N switching which makes for easier testing.

For the M-G board it might even be silly prices for a RCBO so you might want to look at keeping just the MCB in that and feeding an AFDD in a metal garage/shower style of CU that then feeds the sockets. You won't get any selectivity on over-current faults but as they are in the same place and can be labelled as such then not such a big deal to reset both.

 

[SparkyChick]

For Merlin Gerin, talk to Schneider as I think they bought MG. Don't hold your breath on a speedy response though I found their technical team to be somewhat lack lustre when I was trying to source a bunch of replacements for MG gear.

 

[timhoward]

They have had an EICR carried out in December 2020

Their failure to do anything about it for almost two years could prove costly...
Here's a few rambling thoughts....

We inspect against the latest regs. If you inspected it today and it for sake of argument it had type A RCDs but not AFDDs, would you consider it potentially dangerous that there weren't AFDDs or would it be a recommended improvement?
My point is that even if re-inspected today under A2 it would probably only attract a C3 for the missing AFDDs.

Maybe a controversial view, but I consider it legitimate to be addressing the remedial matters as identified on the report against the regs at the time of the report. You're unlikely to be saying "here's an extra C2 - there's no AFDDs".

So this is more of an upgradability problem than an A2 problem to my thinking.

It then comes to economics. Can you in any reasonable way add RCD protection as the report required?
If not, is it best to:
a) change the boards and as the board is a new install fit RCD/AFDDs
b) Farm out a selection of circuits to a new sub-main CU and add RCD/AFDD protection there.
c) Fit an extra DIN rail enclosure to hold a DP RCD for each circuit that needs one.
Or some combination of the above.

 

[davesparks]

For Merlin Gerin, talk to Schneider as I think they bought MG. Don't hold your breath on a speedy response though I found their technical team to be somewhat lack lustre when I was trying to source a bunch of replacements for MG gear.

Schneider do indeed own MG now, they haven't changed much about the designs and still support all the MG stuff though.

It's odd that you had trouble with them, I've never had issues with them yet.