Electrical Inspection Beckingham
Safety Inspections:
In the world we live in today, we often forget about the risks posed by electricity. Electrical devices play such a large role in a day-today lives from when we initially wake up in the morning to when we go to work and cook our dinner in the evening. The UK ‘Health and Safety Executive has published a list of simple precautions people who work around dangerous electrical equipment can take to reduce their risk of electrocution. When planning electrical installations it may be necessary to complete a risk assessment. A risk assessment can help you identify electrical hazards and plan ways to mitigate or minimize the risks associated with that hazard. Business owners and managers should encourage the completion of risk assessments as they have a legal duty and responsibility for health and safety of their staff. If a staff member were to be injured during a planned electrical installation and a health & safety document wasn’t produced before work was carried out, this would be evidence that the business owner or manager didn’t carry out their duty to control the risks in the workplace.
People working in the construction industry should be educated on the ways to identify electrical wires as accidental contact with buried live power lines cause the deaths of people every year. People are also at high risk when working at height in lorry mounted cranes or tipper vehicles. When working at height near electricity you should always be aware of the risks of an Electric arc flash. A flash over is the continuous electrical discharge of high current between an air gap between conductors which has the potential to cause fatal injury. Electrical systems which are lower than 230 volts do have the capacity to kill and injure people. People working at height near electricity should be educated on ways to identify to the difference between power lines and telephone wires; they should understand that electricity can bypass insulated materials such as wood and plastic if they become wet.
According to the ‘Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013’ all occurrences of an electrical short circuit or overload causing fire or explosion in a workplace needs to be reported as well scenarios where equipment collides or comes into contact with overhead power lines.
In 2016 new stricter penalties were introduced for companies or self-employed individuals who failed to comply with the UK Electrical Safety regulations. The changes now state that companies that willingly endorse a culture of putting their employees at risk are now fined, while previously they would only be fined if an incident occurred. Company directors, managers, employees which breach the Electrical safety regulations are more likely to receive jail sentences and the fine they can receive is now as high as ten million pounds for larger companies.
These new measures introduced into law in 2016 were an attempt to increase compliance from business owners and self-employed tradesman who previously ignored health and safety regulations and ultimately reduce the number of preventable accidents in the workplace.
If a director or employee of a business is breaching the law by forcing an environment in which electrical health and safety regulations are being ignored resulting in a likely scenario of causing a life changing injury , then these new measures direct the UK court to impose a sentence of between 6 to 18 months in prison for offenders.
Electrical Certification
In the UK an electrician would be required to produce an electrical certificate after completing work on an electrical installation or after completing routine maintenance. The reason this is done is to validate that electrical work was done in accordance with UK safety regulations and is a way to link electrical work to a particular electrician. This is a practice designed to make sure UK electricians keep their electrical work at a high standard and all electrical work is done as safety as possible.
There are a range of difference types of certificates an electrician is expected to give to customers depending on the type of electrical work being done on their property. For example an electrician completing some installation work either for a domestic or commercial property would be expected to produce either an Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) or a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificates (MEIWC). The certificate validates the electrician issuing the certificate as the person responsible for the electrical safety of the installation and declares the new installation or minor alteration is safe and follows the UK guidelines on electrical safety during the time of installation. Only electricians who are registered for ‘Part P’ of the UK building regulations would be able to issue these certificates to customers. If you’re an electrician looking to get registered onto the Part P scheme you’ll need to ensure you achieve the City & Guilds 2382-10 electrical courses qualification otherwise the electrical work you carry out in a domestic environment would need to be certified by an electrician certified under the competent person scheme.
Can I just ignore these safety certificates?
This depends on what you’re thinking of doing with the property. If you’re thinking of selling your property and you haven’t knowingly extended the electrical wiring in the property then you have no legal obligation to provide an electrical safety certificate to property buyers and it’s in fact the responsibility of the property buyers to ensure the electrics are safe. However if you have knowingly modified or extended the electrical wiring of a property either by yourself or an none certified electrician you are required by UK law to provide a Part P building regulation certificate to property buyers as these certificates validate that the modifications were done in way which meets UK regulation standards.
Keeping hold of these certificates also provides a basis for any further inspection and testing, as they can help save on costly exploratory work which might otherwise be needed in future. Additionally, in the event of a claim that injury or fire was caused by an electrical installation, certificates are documentary evidence which help show that the installation had been installed to a satisfactory standard of safety.
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