• • • SAFETY IN ENGINEERING • • •
Ireland’s Chadwicks Sam Hire checks out Seaward Electrical’s safety tester
Denis Bray, commercial manager of Chadwick’s, Ireland’s leading firm of builders’ merchants, has provided its tool hire operation with advanced electrical safety testing technology as part of an ongoing commitment to improved health and safety
T
he move has seen Chadwicks Sam Hire, which is part of the Chadwicks Group, equipped with Seaward’s compact bench top
SafeCheck 8 testers at its 23 hire locations across the country to enable electrical safety tests to be carried out quickly and efficiently. This ensures that power tools such as drills,
saws, breakers, a/c units and dehumidifiers among other electrical rental equipment are routinely serviced, tested and function correctly before they go out on hire. Chadwicks Sam Hire uses sophisticated test
technology specifically designed for the hire, rental and services industries. The firm has been using the SafeCheck 8 tester for the last eight years, along with a label printer, bar code scanners, fault simulator unit and test beacon, to provide a comprehensive and traceable ‘test and tag’ safety solution. Featuring built-in pre-configured tests for Class I,
Class II and IEC extension lead/power cord testing to ensure compliance with the Hire Association of
Europe code of practice and all other safety regulations, the tester automatically sequences through earth bond, insulation, earth leakage, continuity and full function load tests to ensure that hire equipment continues to perform within original specifications. Chadwicks Sam Hire’s extensive product range
includes products that also require flash testing as part of testing procedures - and the SafeCheck 8 with its 1250V AC Class 1 and 3000V AC Class 2 test voltages is ideally suited for this task. The branches’ electrical testing programmes,
which are carried out by either Seaward trained supervisors or hire technicians, are overseen by my team. The safety of our staff and customers is of
paramount importance. Our testing programmes are therefore designed to ensure that hire equipment not only performs to the highest standards, but also that it is safe to use and complies with all the necessary regulations. This provides complete peace-of-mind for everyone.
The SafeCheck 8 is a very good, easy-to-use and
extremely reliable tester that provides full traceability and a structured approach to testing, ensuring standardisation of electric safety procedures right across our hire operations. Chadwicks Sam Hire’s test protocol requires
that all equipment is tested before being issued on hire, with the test stations also producing special test labels with details of the test results, equipment ID, date of test and a bar code ID for re-test purposes. Test data from the SafeCheck 8 is also integrated with the company’s asset management software program to provide a seamless record keeping system. Seaward’s compliance testing team helps to
deliver this through a long-standing relationship which has seen comprehensive onsite and offsite product support and technical guidance provided over many years. This includes technical demonstrations, help with software system amalgamation and the customisation of printed safety labelling. We don’t ever expect to move away from the
SafeCheck 8 – it’s stood the test of time. We work closely with Seaward to deliver training that ensures our branches are staffed by highly skilled operatives and meet the HAE standards for electrical safety testing. We are grateful for the specialist advice and
support provided by Seaward, whose team has always been responsive and provides robust and traceable hire testing solutions, which fulfil our commitment to meeting our safety obligations. The SafeCheck 8 provides comprehensive safety
testing functions which can be initiated manually or in automatic mode using simple controls with a large clear display providing an immediate indication of pass/fail test results. A key feature is its ability to record details of
all test results, time and date of tests, together with the identity of the person carrying out the test. This data is stored in the unit’s large capacity internal memory for subsequent print out of test reports or transfer to a PC for the compilation of databases. This provides a fully traceable audit trail for quality assurance and safety management purposes. A Test ‘n’ Tag electrical safety labelling system
can be linked for the immediate print out of test tags for attachment to the equipment or its cable as the tests are being carried out - saving time and money and eliminating the use of handwritten labels.
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • OCTOBER 2022 33
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