FIRE & ELECTRICAL SAFETY
APPLYING COMMON SENSE
Jim Wallace of Seaward Electrical explains how a common sense approach is paramount when maintaining electrical safety.
There is considerable evidence that the periodic inspection and testing of portable electrical equipment saves lives and prevents fires that may otherwise have caused injuries, loss of life and serious damage to business premises and workplaces.
The Electricity At Work Regulations 1989, along with the HSE Memorandum of Guidance and successive IET Codes of Practice, have consistently provided sound advice based on industry experience and the electrical safety needs of the business community.
Although nowhere in the EAWR 1989 is there a specific requirement for the testing of electrical equipment, there is an onus on the dutyholder to ensure that equipment in the workplace is maintained so as to prevent danger. It is this requirement that has introduced the implied need for periodic inspection and testing; without such actions, the duty holder will be unable to establish the potential dangers exposed by faulty or unsafe equipment.
Planned and proactive safety programmes must be capable of detecting potential problems with electrical appliances before they occur and this is the role of preventative maintenance programmes.
INSPECTION AND TESTING Following a risk assessment, the effective maintenance of portable equipment can be achieved by a combination of user checks, formal visual inspections by a competent person and where necessary a combined inspection and test by an electrically competent person.
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An important part of a maintenance regime is the formal visual inspection of electrical equipment by a trained person. Basic checks should be carried out by the person using the equipment to identify obvious damage, but formal visual inspection can reveal potentially dangerous faults. It can also be the precursor to electrical testing to identify ‘invisible’ electrical faults.
Visual inspections should be carried out by a member of staff who has sufficient information and knowledge of what to look for. The suggested initial intervals for inspecting portable electrical equipment vary from every two to three years in some low risk working environments, to every six months or annually in more demanding locations.
Clearly, any combined inspection and testing measures should be appropriate to the particular risk posed by the equipment and its environment. For example, smaller offices or workplaces with only a few electrical appliances, and a staff of limited technical ability, might be regarded as relatively low risk environments. Here a responsible attitude might be regarded as a regular process of formal user checks and visual inspection, combined with some limited periodic testing.
A different view, however, might need to be taken by a large organisation, with different departments and having many different types of electrical equipment used by staff.
In this case, ensuring the safety of appliances may
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not only be a matter of ensuring the correct test equipment is available, but also having the ability to show that the right tests have been performed at the right time in the correct sequence, with records of test levels and results.
Continuous technical innovation has ensured that portable appliance test instrumentation has kept pace with the changing demands of the workplace to meet the needs of everyone with a responsibility for ensuring the safe use of electrical equipment.
Today, different PAT testers with a whole host of special features and PAT accessories are available to meet the needs of all dutyholders and workplace environments.
To illustrate these advances, the latest generation Apollo PATs, are equipped with an onboard risk management tool to help determine re-test intervals. In the most sophisticated models, this feature is included alongside a built-in digital camera to enable high quality images to be tagged against appliance records for completely traceable visual checks, electrical safety record keeping and maintenance.
Continuous test innovation and a common sense approach to appliance testing means that adequate electrical safety measures can be effectively maintained in all workplaces, without having to propose an excessive test regime.
www.seaward.co.uk
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