Can I Do It Myself?

This would have to be one of the most common misconceptions of the New Zealand electrical industry. The short answer is most likely no. In your own residence only, you may:
– Replace a fuse (thankfully less and less around these days!)
– Remove a fuse and put a plug-in circuit breaker in its place
– Change a plug or a socket on the end of an extension lead
– Work on things like Christmas tree lights that do not exceed 50 volts
– Replace a fitting such as a light or a power point, like-for-like

You CANNOT do this for anyone else. Not even mum. Not at work. Not at Bob’s place. Not at the club. Do not run a cable at work and then expect your electrician to simply sign it off: it does not work that way!

Is This Safe?

Old wiring? Buzzing sounds? Flickering lights? Socket feels warm? Basically, if it looks a bit suspect, is clearly broken and bare, or just doesn’t seem right compared to yesterday, then just give us a call. It might be perfectly fine. Or not. And a house fire is a nasty way to tell the difference. Unsure? Call the sparky!

Why Does My Circuit Breaker Keep Tripping?

The simple answer to this is “because something is wrong”. There are two types of breaker in the average domestic installation:
1. Normal circuit breakers. The switch looking things in the switchboard. and mostly, Up is On, Down is Off (or tripped).
2. RCDs (Residual Current Devices). These have a test button built into them. They look fairly similar to a circuit breaker.

A normal circuit breaker will trip if there is a short circuit or an overload. An RCD will trip if there is earth leakage. For many years, a single RCD has been installed upstream of several circuit breakers, which means that if one circuit, e.g., your lights, trips the RCD, a couple of other circuits, such as power points or the pump, will also turn off, even though the fault is unrelated to them. To find what is causing the RCD to trip, turn the breakers off, reset the RCD, and turn the breakers back o n one by one until the RCD trips again. That breaker is for the problem circuit. Call the sparky!

Why Is My Power Bill So High?

Mainly politics, sorry! Power bills are made up of 2 or 3 parts: a daily charge to stay connected to the system – at rates that certainly don’t seem fair, a per-unit charge for the actual electricity flow over the month, and sometimes a cheaper per-unit rate for water heating etc. When we get an unexpectedly high bill, we assume something is “leaking” power. We think some faulty appliance is draining electricity, or that the meter is reading wrong. But it’s highly likely to be that sneaky daily charge, pushed up by governments who think ‘green’ energy is achievable and who charge ‘carbon credits’ for low-grade coal that they have imported from Indonesia instead of using our own high-grade (and far cheaper) coal because apparently, shipping it in from overseas is better for the environment. It’s called progress. Go figure.

What Is Watt? Volts? Amps? All These Terms?

Think of it like water in a pipe. Volts is the pressure. Amps is the flow. Watts is how much flows. And kWh (Kilo-Watt Hours, or Units) is how much has flowed in an hour. If you need a lot of water per hour, you’re going to need to up the flow. And to do that, you need to increase the pressure, or the size of the pipe. As the pressure is standardised across the country at 230V (or 400V 3-phase) that leaves the size of the pipe.

Bigger appliances need bigger wires, and bigger circuit breakers. Your stove pours lots of energy into your food, so it needs a big wire and a big fuse. Your phone charger is a tiny little midget that uses less power than a light bulb, so it’s cable is tiny. A 5000 watt stove left on full bore for an hour (that’s a pretty impressive feat, actually. They never go flat out for long) will have used 5k watts and 1 hour, making 5 kWh. The charger, meantime, is all of about 15 watt, so it hasn’t even used 0.02 of a unit! These people that say to unplug everything etc are nonsensical.

Something Else?