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Safety switches, RCD testing and compliance

The only device in the house that protects a person rather than a cable. Fitted, tested and documented for owners, landlords and agencies.

Usually same week, sooner for a sale or a tenancy

0491 570 110Get a quote
Safety switches & testingPlate 03
Schematic of a residual current device — active and neutral passing through a sensing core, with a leakage current of thirty milliamps escaping to earth instead of returning.SENSE30 mA TO EARTHACTIVENEUTRAL
Sound familiar

This is the page if any of these is happening

  • There are no test buttons anywhere on your switchboard
  • You are selling or renting the property out and need it compliant
  • The safety switch trips at random, often in the rain or early morning
  • A property manager has asked for an RCD test report
  • The last test was more than two years ago, or you have no record of one
What we actually do

What a safety switch actually does

A circuit breaker watches the cable. If too much current flows, it opens before the cable overheats. It has no idea whether a person is involved.

A residual current device watches the balance between what goes out on the active and what comes back on the neutral. If some of that current has left the circuit — through a person, through wet ground, through a damaged appliance — the two no longer match, and it disconnects in under thirty milliseconds. That is fast enough to matter.

In Western Australia a home must have a minimum of two RCDs covering every power point and lighting circuit before it is sold, rented or has an occupancy permit issued. We fit them, test them with a calibrated instrument rather than the test button, and give you a report with the actual trip times on it.

What is included

Compliance assessment
Which circuits are protected, which are not, and exactly what is needed to meet the WA requirement. In writing.
RCD or RCBO installation
Fitted at the board and configured so one nuisance trip does not take the whole house down with it.
Instrument testing
Measured trip current and trip time on every device with a calibrated tester. The button on the front only proves the button works.
Nuisance-trip fault finding
Where an existing RCD trips for no obvious reason, we find the leakage rather than swapping the device and hoping.
Landlord report
A dated PDF with device details, trip times and pass or fail per circuit, formatted so a property manager can file it without asking questions.
What it costs

What safety switch work costs

Small jobs with a fixed price. Where a board has no space, the honest answer is a board upgrade, and we say so before you spend money on a workaround.

Two RCDs fitted to an existing board
$390 – $580The standard compliance job where the board has spare space and a modern enclosure.
RCD test and report, standard home
$150Every device tested with a calibrated instrument, report emailed the same day.
Per additional RCBO
$120 – $165Where you would rather have one device per circuit than two shared ones.
Nuisance-trip fault finding
From $185Charged as a standard fault call-out. Often it turns out to be an outdoor point or an old oven element.

If the board physically cannot take RCDs, fitting them anyway is not something we will do. We will quote the board instead and tell you why.

While you wait

Before the test

  1. 01Everything on the circuits goes off briefly during testing — a few seconds per device. Save open work and pause anything that does not like losing power.
  2. 02If you have a home office, a NAS, an aquarium or a medical device, tell us when you book so we can sequence around it.
  3. 03For a landlord report, have the property address exactly as it appears on the lease so the report matches the paperwork.
One we did

The same job, written up with the clock attached

Questions

What people ask about safety switches & testing

How many safety switches do I need in WA?

A minimum of two, and between them they must cover every power point and lighting circuit in the home. That is the requirement before a property is sold, rented out, or handed over on a new build. Many homes have one covering the power points only, which does not meet it.

Isn't pressing the test button enough?

The test button proves the mechanism moves. It does not measure how much leakage current it took to trip, or how many milliseconds it took. An RCD can pass the button test and still be too slow to protect anybody. That is the difference between a test and a report.

How often should they be tested?

Press the button yourself every three months — it takes ten seconds. A full instrument test every two years for an owner-occupied home, and at every change of tenancy for a rental.

My RCD trips when it rains. Is it faulty?

Usually not. It is usually doing exactly what it is designed to do because water has got into an outdoor power point, a garden light or an old sub-main to a shed. The device is reporting a real problem, and the fix is to find the wet circuit rather than to replace the switch.

Usually same week, sooner for a sale or a tenancy

Ring it through and we will tell you which band it falls in.

We text when we are on the way, and you get the price before we start.

7:00am – 7:00pm, seven days · EC 13927

0491 570 110Get a quote

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