Load-shedding tips for winter

With the rotational load-shedding we have been experiencing lately, it seems the unreliable power supply will be part of our home and work lives at least for the short to medium term.

Mandy Barrett of insurance brokerage and risk advisers, Aon South Africa, offered advice to minimise the impact of load-shedding on your lifestyle, safety and assets, especially over the holidays.

“If you are heading off for the holidays, make sure that an extended power outage or surge at home does not compromise your security in any way,” said Mandy.

Valuable tips to help you cope with load-shedding and to minimise the disruptions:

• Check that the battery back-up on your alarm, electric fencing, irrigation, and other programmable appliances are working.

Also, ensure that you have sufficient back-up time to see you through an outage.

If the battery runs down completely, you will need to re-programme the time slots when the power comes back on.

If you’re away for the holidays, arrange with a trusted person to do this for you.

• Keep a spare key with you for your electric gate motor and know how to override your electric gate to gain access to your property if necessary.

Be on alert for opportunistic crime – don’t leave your car running in the driveway while you’re occupied with the gate.

Get someone at home to open and close the gate immediately behind you.

Better still, arrange with your armed response company to see you in and out of your premises.

• Leave appliances unplugged when not in use and have good quality surge protection at all plug points.

Even better, get a qualified electrician to install surge protection onto your main distribution board.

• Empty your fridge and freezer of perishables if you are going away on holiday.

There is nothing worse than coming home to a rotten mess due to a power surge or tripped switch.

• Switch your electric geyser off if no-one will be home during the holidays.

If you have a solar geyser or heat pump, check with your qualified installer first before switching anything off.

Some systems have built-in ‘holiday protection’ and ‘anti-boil functions’ and in some instances switching your system off can cause overheating and damage to your system.

• Have standby/emergency lighting on hand for any outages and make sure it is fully charged for when you need it.

Be especially careful with gas lamps and open flames which pose a serious fire risk.

• Consider installing a small inverter and UPS system for items such as laptops, routers, and TV to keep the basics on in an outage.

Use pure sine wave technology which is designed to work with sensitive equipment.

Generators and Solar Photovoltaic systems

To reduce dependence on the grid, many people are installing generators and solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.

“All such interventions come with their risks so it is essential that you understand what these are and ensure that qualified installers do all work,” urges Mandy.

It is advisable to get an electrical certificate of compliance (COC) for any electrical work done at your home.

“Your insurance will request this should you need to claim in future to prove that all work was done to required safety standards and regulations.”

• Have your generator professionally installed by a qualified electrician with a transfer switch to ensure that you can safely switch between electricity from the grid and the generator when required.

• Never overload the generator with more appliances than it can handle as this can cause serious damage to sensitive appliances.

Always use the specified heavy-duty power cable extensions as overloaded cords can cause fires or equipment damage.

• Solar Photo Voltaic (PV) systems are like any other electrical power generating systems although the equipment used is different from that used in generators.

A PV array produces power when exposed to sunlight

Other components are required to properly conduct, control, convert, distribute, and sometimes store the energy produced by the array such as DC-AC power inverter, battery bank, a system, and a battery controller.

Surge protection and disconnect devices and other power processing equipment may be required.

• It is important to have your PV system designed and installed by qualified professionals.

This is to ensure the safety of your system which is attached to your most valuable asset – your home.

Get an electrical certificate of compliance and advise your broker about the new additions to ensure that the sums insured on your policy are sufficient to cover these substantial new assets.