SOUTH West home and business owners are being urged to contact their builders or electrical contractors to determine the brand of electrical cabling installed in homes or business premises following a national recall of potentially unsafe cables.
The recall targets Infinity brand cables which do not comply with Australian safety standards.
EnergySafety advises licensed electrical contractors who know or suspect they have purchased and installed these cables should talk to their cable supplier to find out whether they had supplied these cables.
Replacement cables will be a commercial matter between the contractor and supplier.
Contractors should then check their records of jobs, contact the clients involved, offer to inspect the cables used and, if they prove to be one of the faulty brands, offer to replace the cables with a complying brand.
The sub-standard cables, imported by Infinity Cable Co Pty Ltd (in liquidation), were sold in WA during 2012 and 2013.
All supplies are being recalled after samples failed to meet electrical safety standards due to poor quality plastic insulation coating.
It is estimated that about 40,000 homes and businesses throughout Australia may be affected. About 250 kilometres of the cable were sold into the WA market.
The average house uses a maximum of 500 metres of electrical cable.
All sizes and configurations of flat white cable and orange round Infinity mains power cables, as well as Olsent brand power cables sourced from Infinity, are affected.
In WA, the cables were sold by Masters Home Improvement and John Danks & Sons, trading as Home Timber & Hardware, Plants Plus and Thrifty-Link Hardware.
EnergySafety’s electricity compliance director Michael Bunko said homes and business premises that were built or had undergone electrical repairs or renovations in 2012 and 2013 must be checked.
“Testing has found that the cables will degrade prematurely and, if the cables are disturbed, the insulation could break and expose live conductors, resulting in possible electric shock or fires,” Mr Bunko said.
“The cables will age at different rates subject to ambient temperature and may become brittle from 2016 onwards, so there is urgency that they be replaced as soon as possible.”
The recall notice can be viewed at recalls.gov.au and further information is available at accc.gov.au
