CAUSES OF FAULTY WIRING

The most common cause of fires in houses and buildings are faulty wiring. These maybe the result of do-it-yourself wiring installment, or the work of an inexperienced and unlicensed electrician.

Often times, our desire to save on professional fees leads to problems which have permanent repercussions – and you and your family are lucky if you only lose property. Dozens of people lose their lives and the lives of pets and other loved ones. This is termed as false economy – in your determination to save, you end up losing it all.

So what are the most common causes of faulty wiring?

Really old and outdated wiring system.  Before you go out and purchase a house, make sure you look behind walls to check if the wiring of your  new house is a death trap. Especially when purchasing  a decades-old house,  wiring can be damaged by age, by past floods, a lightning strike which occurred 20 years ago, and gnawing of mice. It’s going to be difficult to actually look behind walls, but to save your lives and to save on needless burrowing into walls, have a professional electrician to check on everything. As with water pipes, wires are also subject to wear and tear. Remember that the electrical systems back in the day are not as advanced and efficient as the ones we now have. Replace those fuse-type boxes with a reall efficient circuit breaker, so that when a part of the house wiring short circuits, you can localize the switching off of power. Replace old wires if needed.

Overloaded circuits. It’s logical – ideally, the rule is “one plug per outlet” – especially if you’re plugging in a high voltage using appliance (like air conditioning, refrigerators and freezers, washing machines, and electric stove. Using an extension should be a temporary solution, not a permanent one. And when choosing extensions. Choose one that’s fitted for the wattage that’s going to be plugged into it.  Never ever use octopus plugs – these are those square devices which you plug into one socket, but have several outlets at the sides, enabling the plugging of 4 or more appliances. This is a sure-fire way to overload y our circuit and thus slowly burn into the wiring.

Unexplainable dimming lights or fuses exploding. If you notice these symptoms, most probably, you have faulty wiring. This can be an offshoot of numbers 1 and 2 (overloaded circuits and outdated wiring system). Either you have plugged in too many appliances into a socket, with no regard for the maximum wattage per socket, or your wires are old and crunchy (disintegrating). Hire a good contractor to replace and or check for solutions.