Latest update April 17th, 2025 8:12 PM
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Faulty electrical wiring responsible for most house fires
– GPL urges regular inspections
The Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) is urging consumers to have regular inspections of the electrical wiring in their homes to avoid potential electrical fires.
Issuing the warning on Tuesday, GPL Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal, said that in many cases, the power company is saddled with claims even though it is not at fault.
Stressing that the internal wiring of homes is the ultimate responsibility of the home owner, Dindyal noted that periodically the government’s electrical inspector is expected to make checks. In many cases, consumers contribute to electrical fires by illegally and wrongfully upgrading fuses or breakers in order to solve a potential problem.
Explaining, the CEO said that whenever a fault occurs in the wiring system at homes, some owners would upgrade the fuses or breakers with wires without attempting to find out what caused the fault in the first place. With the fault persisting, a short circuit scenario is created and this in turn is passed on to the network, placing a load on the area transformer.
In many cases, some home owners would experience sparking lines and even though GPL crews would tighten what was suspected to be a slack connection, the sparking would continue.
In addition to the potential fire hazard, excess current because of the fault is recorded on the meters.
Dindyal explained that in some cases bridging wires could cause instantaneous fire to PVC pipes leading to damage. The official suggested that wirings of homes be inspected at least every ten years to avoid problems.
GPL is hoping to hold a public awareness exercise to demonstrate how electrical fires are started.
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