If you’re having electrical work done on your home your going to be confronted with a lot of electrical jargon that you may not necessarily be used to or understand. So i thought it would be a good idea to explain what most of the commonly used electrical terms mean and how they related to your domestic electrical system.
Amps: An Amp is a measure of the amount of electricity flowing through a circuit. The most useful analogy is to imagine a the amount of water running through a hose pipe. The more water flowing through the pipe the higher the current.
Volts: Volts are a measure of the amount of electric pressure that flows through a system. Using the previous example the higher the voltage the higher the water pressure in the pipe.
Watts: Volts multiplied by Amps = Watts. Watts are effectively a measure of how much power is used in a particular electrical circuit. As an example the more watts an appliance uses the more power it uses.
If you need to calculate watts to Amps or vice versa use this handy tool by electrical safety first.
RCDs; Means Residual Current Device. The device automatically switches off the electricity to a circuit or appliance if there is a fault detected. They are primarily designed to prevent injuries and save lives.
An RCD consistently monitors the electric current flowing through a circuit, if and when it detects electricity flowing through an unintended path it switches of the circuit very quickly which reduces the risk of people being harmed.
Fuseboxes: Fuseboxes are fairly self explanatory, they are a box that contains all of the fuses for your home. You should know where the fuse box is in your home as in an emergency you may need to turn the electricity off quickly.
Your fusebox will contain three things:
The main switch – this allows you to turn off the electricity in your home.
RCDS – as mentioned above
Circuit breakers- these are the breakers that trip from time to time. you can simply flick the switch and turn the electricity back on.