Electricity at Work Regs

[AndyD1]

Hi,

Below is an excerpt from the Electricity at Work Regs, can anyone give advice on what would satisfy the first of the conditions to enable live working?

I am currently working in a very well known commercial operation carrying out PIRs on all of their offices etc and I am being told that it is not reasonable to isolate prior to the inspections due to financial reasons, however the guys I have on site have come across some very dubious wiring already i.e. open live conductors in metal trunking etc. My argument for isolating has been "how do you put a price on a sparkys life" but this is falling on deaf ears!

Work on or near live conductors should rarely be permitted (regulation 14). Many accidents to electricians, technicians and electrical engineers occur when they are working on equipment that could have been isolated. In most cases, adequate planning and work programming will allow such jobs to be carried out as the Regulations require, ie with the equipment dead. Regulation 14 requires that three conditions are met for live working to be permitted where danger may arise. It is stressed that if just one of those conditions cannot be met, live working cannot be permitted and dead working is necessary. The assessment procedure illustrates this. The conditions are:

1. it is unreasonable in all the circumstances for the conductor to be dead; andn
   
2. it is reasonable in all the circumstances for the person to be at work on or near that conductor while it is live; and
   
3. suitable precautions (including, where necessary, the provision of personal n protective equipment) have been taken to prevent injury
   

Apologies for the long post and thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[revjames]

overhead lines, you cant turn them off everytme you have to connect a house. suitable precautions are taken in the form of insulated tools, shrouds, gloves etc.

Cant see a reason for it to be reasonable to work on anything in a domestic situation live, but in a commercial situation where it may not be so easy to isolate effectively without turning everything off perhaps it could be justified. Are we talking about taking a switch plate off live to have a peek or actual hands on / insulated screwdriver on?

 

[green-hornet]

It is far too risky to expect anyone to work on live cables in metal trunking.

The circuits will need to be dead for any remedial work to progress.

Financial loss can be limited to when the building is not used and appropiate times can be found to do this work.

If I was you I would just do the visual and mark off all the code 1's and tell them it needs sorting before any further testing can be done for a satisfactory certificate.

That will force them to act on your report.

 

[Andy™]

^what he said

live working in metallic trunking is not a good idea. especially if there are already live exposed parts in there

certain work can be done live, but from the details you have given, this would easily fail 'reasonable to work live'

 

[AndyD1]

Cheers guys,

This is what I have told the client too.

One problem I have regarding, even, the visual inspections is that my lads on site removed a trunking lid the other night, which was installed above 2no DBs and someone had left a starret disc (where a 20mm hole had previously been drilled in the trunking) inside the trunking and as the law of sod would have it this fell into a board and ended up across two phases taking out a whole riser, bypassing the local tap off! No discrimination at time of original install which is why everyone is now very nervous about the whole situation, this being said the client will STILL not agree to full isolation prior to any works taking place.

 

[Andy™]

ask them what there backup plans are in case of power failure

 

[AndyD1]

Unfortunately, Distribution system is Gen Set and/ or UPS backed but only on the main panels feeding the risers i.e. for full mains failure to the buildings, but not for individual DBs

 

[Andy™]

sounds like out of hours is the only way to go

 

[AndyD1]

Already doing that but as it is a 24hr 7 day a week operation it's getting a bit frustrating.

Thanks again for all the replies though, I thought it was just me that couln't see the wood for the trees.

 

[binky]

Already doing that but as it is a 24hr 7 day a week operation it's getting a bit frustrating.Thanks again for all the replies though, I thought it was just me that couln't see the wood for the trees.

shutdowns for holidays???

 

[wozz]

in the situation you describe i thought it is almost impossible to achieve complete discrimination, so dont see it as much of a reason to get nervous over the whole installation.

 

[Evans Electric]

Just report on what you are finding , thats what they are paying you for . Make sure its down in writing , note that you were not given permission to switch off .

Its then their responsibility to take what action is necessary .

On no account should your guys be put in harms way because a bunch of paper shufflers won't switch their computers off.

 

[Riggy]

I've given this reply before, and been shot down, but here goes!

When the EAW Regs were introduced in 1988 the HSE held a series of seminars around the country to explain them. The live working section was obviously the most contentious.

The HSE's chief electrical inspector stated clearly that their view on the when it would be unreasonable in all circumstances to work dead would be very rare the example he quoted was when a life support machine was fed from the supply.

When challenged he was very clear the "Fiscal Expediency" was not a valid reason for working live!

The OP has my sympathies, I've been there. The bottom line is if he chooses to work live and something goes wrong, his customer will be the first person to attack him!

 

[M107]

Not worth the risk imho, last year (I think) there was an article in one of the trade publications about a prosecution of a company because a sparks received a fatal shock while working in galv trunk & connected to bare conductors hidden inside trunk.

As already said do what you can as visual & mark down C1's, a written explenation of your actions to the company & quote EAW might be in order.

In a week or so I'm sutting down a complete firestation to add a 125a sf + TP & SP db to an existing installation, They gave it the "not to sure about that" showed their H&S dept EAW, the shut down is not a problem now

 

[green-hornet]

My son and I removed a lid off a length of 150 galvanised trunking and recieved a deafening bang and plunged into complete darkness.

On inspection inside almost every cable had been damaged on install with both neutral and live bare cables. I showed the client and refused to do any more testing whilst the premises where open (a public house and resturaunt), he went mad that I had caused the whole place to go down in the first place. I told him it was just a matter of time before the place went up never mind down. Eventually he agreed and we spent all week sleeving and or replaceing cables.