Working on live distribution boards?

D Skelton said:

CTID said:

What does rile me is the old timers saying they are the best/real men/properly trained/real apprenticeship people of this trade.

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I'm not one for old timer bashing, but this is the one thing that riled me as well. I know deep down they don't mean it to sund this way because they are all good blokes on here, but sometimes things can come across in a way that can seem disparaging to others without it meaning to.

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I fully agree with you, I just get sick of the constant bashing of younger sparks, brought up in a different era, trained differently, but not necessarily in any way worse training.

Frightens me, this 'oldtimer' term. Th'owd fella's still going strong at 81 and wouldn't take it kindly, even though it does have a ring of truth about it.
Although, whilst in the wholesalers a while ago, a lad in his 20's asked me what multimeter I used. When I showed him my Fluke 83 he asked how to test Zs with it. Summed it up a bit, really. May be showing my age.....

I know of electricians and also skilled labourers at the same company That work live on a daily basis as part of there job. They are installing and removing circuits on 3 phase boards with no guards, training or ppe. Some of these boards have been modified with cables in and out and like spaghetti and the conductors have no circuit identifaction.

It is wrote in the rams that no live working is to be undertaken but employees are laided off if they are unwilling to work live. Isolating would only inconvenience a few workers.

I thought I should share this with the debate to put the point across that sometimes if you don't work live you wont keep some jobs.

Sad but true

martinh287 said:

I know of electricians and also skilled labourers at the same company That work live on a daily basis as part of there job. They are installing and removing circuits on 3 phase boards with no guards, training or ppe. Some of these boards have been modified with cables in and out and like spaghetti and the conductors have no circuit identifaction.

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Then technically what they are doing is illegal, no ifs, no buts. Not that I am passing judgement.

martinh287 said:

It is wrote in the rams that no live working is to be undertaken but employees are laided off if they are unwilling to work live. Isolating would only inconvenience a few workers.

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That's wrongful dismissal then, I'd have my employer hauled up in front of an industrial tribunal if that were me! I would win too!

martinh287 said:

I thought I should share this with the debate to put the point across that sometimes if you don't work live you wont keep some jobs.

Sad but true

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Agree here, but like I said earlier, I'm my own boss, so if I do it I choose to do it or I leave the work, the decision is on my head. I would never ask anyone else to carry out live working on my behalf!

D Skelton said:

I said economic impact alone.

Working live, even safely carries significant risks. If the only factor to consider is money, then live working shall never be permitted. If by the loss of money people start to suffer, ie a company goes out of business, people lose jobs, people can't provide for their families, then it ceases to become just economic doesn't it.

If you have to shut down a factory for half a day which results in a few thousand pounds, maybe even tens of thousands of pounds, but doesn't actually affect anyone personally then live working shouldn't be permitted (that's not to say that it doesn't happen).

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It really bugs me when people who don't know much about the subject make statements asserting legal authority for their personal opinions on the interpretation of health and safety law, which is what you've been doing all thread.

I've seen nothing you've written on these boards to indicate that you are in any way an expert on health and safety law, and everything you've written in this thread pretty much says you aren't, so yes it bugs me to see you presenting these opinions as statements of legal fact.

The test of reasonableness in UK case law specifically does allow for the economic impact to be considered either by itself, or in conjunction with other issues, there needs to be a balance taken between the economic impact (and / or any other negative impacts) vs the level of risk the worker is being exposed to.

FWIW 2 people were killed at work from electrocution last year vs 25 from falls from height, yet working at height isn't banned in all but the most extreme of circumstances, the risk just needs to be sensibly mitigated, and only correctly trained and experienced staff should be allowed to do it.

If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe the IET, or HSE

The definition set out by the Court of Appeal (in its judgment in Edwards v. National Coal Board, [1949] 1 All ER 743) is:
“‘Reasonably practicable’ is a narrower term than ‘physically possible’ … a computation must be made by the owner in which the quantum of risk is placed on one scale and the sacrifice involved in the measures necessary for averting the risk (whether in money, time or trouble) is placed in the other, and that, if it be shown that there is a gross disproportion between them – the risk being insignificant in relation to the sacrifice – the defendants discharge the onus on them.”

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D Skelton said:

Then technically what they are doing is illegal, no ifs, no buts. Not that I am passing judgement.

That's wrongful dismissal then, I'd have my employer hauled up in front of an industrial tribunal if that were me! I would win too!

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my previous post was written before seeing this post, which I'd agree with entirely.

CTID said:

I fully agree with you, I just get sick of the constant bashing of younger sparks, brought up in a different era, trained differently, but not necessarily in any way worse training.

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There must be an issue though if younger sparks are being trained that they should never work live, and therefore not being trained in safe live working practices, that they will then not be as safe or competent to actually work live when it would otherwise be justified for them to have done so.

Effectively it's a self fullfilling prophecy that if new sparks aren't trained to work live, then they can't be judged as being competent to work live even when the situation would have justified it, so live working effectively does become illegal as eventually there won't be anyone employed who is competent to do it.

Gavin A said:

It really bugs me when people who don't know much about the subject make statements asserting legal authority for their personal opinions on the interpretation of health and safety law, which is what you've been doing all thread.

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No I haven't, not at all! At no point have I even incinuated this!

Gavin A said:

I've seen nothing you've written on these boards to indicate that you are in any way an expert on health and safety law, and everything you've written in this thread pretty much says you aren't, so yes it bugs me to see you presenting these opinions as statements of legal fact.

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All I have done is point out what the EAWRs say!!! That if for any reason you can work dead, then to work live is illegal! If you end up working live just so that a company can save a few quid then you are working illegally!!! Jesus!!! What is so hard to grasp here?!?

Of course there are plenty of factors to take into account, but money alone is not one of them! If the amount of money is great enough that it affects people in other ways then you are introducing other factors!

Gavin A said:

The test of reasonableness in UK case law specifically does allow for the economic impact to be considered either by itself, or in conjunction with other issues, there needs to be a balance taken between the economic impact (and / or any other negative impacts) vs the level of risk the worker is being exposed to.

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And you will find that when that level of risk is death (not injury and potential death), just death, the economic impact alone is not reason enough!

Gavin A said:

FWIW 2 people were killed at work from electrocution last year vs 25 from falls from height, yet working at height isn't banned in all but the most extreme of circumstances, the risk just needs to be sensibly mitigated, and only correctly trained and experienced staff should be allowed to do it.

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WTF has working at height got to do with this thread? There are probably a few million more people working at height in the country at any given time than there are people working live?!

Gavin, read my long post just before the one you have replied to. I have nothing against what you have said in your reply, I am in agreement that people should be taught, as I have been, to work safely in live boards. My argument was against a few comments sniggering at younger sparks who will not or can not work live, mainly due to their companies no longer allowing it, thus some of the old timers were acting superior to the these younger sparks.

Gavin,
Whilst working at height, like live working is not illegal, there is a defined hierarchy of control for WAH and the WAH regs.
First control measure for WAH, don't.
Just like the first control measure for requiring live working, don't.

My NEBOSH GC tutor was a very experienced & competent H&S guy.
Old school, off the shop floor, and union trained, so very practical, not academic.
I knew him when he was in his union roll @ a customer plant.
There were debates about guarding on machines.
Himself & the Co. Safety officer agreed on the cost vs benefits argument.

Their answer to us as suppliers was simple.
If it is going to cost less to sort the issue than the loss will cost in paper money, then do it.
I think that is a good way to think of this.
However, turned on it's head in a way.
If some poor soul gets electrocuted, what would be the cost to the businesses involved, is this less than the cost of shutting down?
If yes, shut down, if no, then prepare costs & procedures to work live, is it now cheaper to shut down?
Or that knd of thing, IYKWIM?

Gavin A said:

There must be an issue though if younger sparks are being trained that they should never work live, and therefore not being trained in safe live working practices, that they will then not be as safe or competent to actually work live when it would otherwise be justified for them to have done so.

Effectively it's a self fullfilling prophecy that if new sparks aren't trained to work live, then they can't be judged as being competent to work live even when the situation would have justified it, so live working effectively does become illegal as eventually there won't be anyone employed who is competent to do it.

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Sorry to harp on mate but how can you TRAIN sparks to work live when the EAWR basically say you shouldn't?

13 pages...

Bo11ocks to this, I'm out!!!

netblindpaul said:

Gavin,
Whilst working at height, like live working is not illegal, there is a defined hierarchy of control for WAH and the WAH regs.
First control measure for WAH, don't.
Just like the first control measure for requiring live working, don't.

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no it doesn't, it says

• avoid work at height where they can;

Their answer to us as suppliers was simple.
If it is going to cost less to sort the issue than the loss will cost in paper money, then do it.
I think that is a good way to think of this.
However, turned on it's head in a way.

If some poor soul gets electrocuted, what would be the cost to the businesses involved, is this less than the cost of shutting down?
If yes, shut down, if no, then prepare costs & procedures to work live, is it now cheaper to shut down?
Or that knd of thing, IYKWIM?

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that's a very simplistic way of looking at it, I'm not really sure it's even a good rule of thumb. - in fact it definitely isn't as the HSE states that the level of financial loss must be grossly disproportionate to the level of risk, so anything that equated the 2 would leave you losing in court if the worst happened. (unless I'm misreading that post)

To do it properly, first you'd need to calculate the risk level, which is an assessment of the danger level X the frequency it could be expected to occur. This is what would need balancing against the economic loss associated with

Then you'd need to assess the impact of a range of mitigation measures to reduce both the danger level and frequency of occurrence to provide a combined risk level that would then be judged against the associated costs involved in either not doing the work at all, or shutting down the power for the duration of the work.

While the ultimate danger from electrocution remains death in all situations, the chances of this occurring in most situations can probably be reduced to an acceptably low level via methods to reduce the impact of the electrocution / touching of the live parts - eg PPE, insulating mats, one hand working, as well as the chances of it occuring in the first place via the training and experience of the electrician, good lighting, protecting the area of work, working tidy etc etc.

This applies to one off jobs, if it's going to be regular work, then you'd also need to factor in the frequency of this work through the lifetime of the plant / employee's working life vs lifetime costs of plant closures etc This would be where the concept of all but urgent tasks being carried out during plant closure periods with the power off would come from - as an example.

Bottom line, is it's a judgement call, and the buck would stop with the person making that judgement call, and / or the person responsible for them up the line, along with the person actually carrying out the work who assumes responsibility for their claim to be competent to do it (unless they've objected and been forced into it), and adopting all the safe working methods detailed in the method statement. Some companies may well take the judgement that they don't want to be making these judgement calls, and ban live working entirely, which is their prerogative, but they'd be wrong to then go around stating that live working is specifically banned by statute / HSE.

Pete999 said:

Sorry to harp on mate but how can you TRAIN sparks to work live when the EAWR basically say you shouldn't?

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where does it say this?

The relevant section of the EAWR have been quoted on this thread, and the EAWR doesn't say this.

Here's the HSE guidance on the EAWR, I'd really suggest that a lot of people on this thread could benefit from reading it.

209 The factors which would be considered in deciding whether it was justifiable for work to proceed with the conductors live would include the following:
(a) when it is not practicable to carry out the work with the conductors dead, eg
where for the purposes of testing it is necessary for the conductors to be live;
(b) the creation of other hazards, by making the conductors dead, such as to
other users of the system, or for continuously operating process plants etc;
(c) the need to comply with other statutory requirements;
(d) the level of risk involved in working live and the effectiveness of the
precautions available set against economic need to perform that work.

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(c) The need to take precautions to prevent injury212 The precautions necessary to comply with regulation 14(c) need to be
commensurate with the risk.
213 The system of work should: allow only people who are competent to do so to
work on or near exposed, live conductors (competence for these and other
purposes is further dealt with at regulation 16); indicate within what limits the work
is to be attempted; indicate what levels of competence apply to each category of
such work; and incorporate procedures under which the person attempting the
work will report back if the limits specified in the system are likely to be exceeded.
This usually requires detailed planning before the work is started.

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214 Suitable precautions should include as appropriatea) the use of people who are properly trained and competent to work on live
equipment safely (see also regulation 16);
(b) the provision of adequate information to the person carrying out the work
about the live conductors involved, the associated electrical system and the
foreseeable risks;
(c) the use of suitable tools, including insulated tools, equipment and protective
clothing (see also regulation 4(4));
(d) the use of suitable insulated barriers or screens (see also regulation 4(4));
(e) the use of suitable instruments and test probes;
(f) accompaniment by another person or people if the presence of such person
or people could contribute significantly to ensuring that injury is prevented;
(g) the restriction of routine live test work (for example product testing) to specific
areas and the use of special precautions within those areas such as isolated
power supplies, non-conducting locations etc;
(h) effective control of any area where there is danger from live conductors.

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CTID said:

Gavin, read my long post just before the one you have replied to. I have nothing against what you have said in your reply, I am in agreement that people should be taught, as I have been, to work safely in live boards. My argument was against a few comments sniggering at younger sparks who will not or can not work live, mainly due to their companies no longer allowing it, thus some of the old timers were acting superior to the these younger sparks.

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If they have been trained properly to work live, and the younger sparks haven't, then by definition, the older sparks are superior sparks on this point. They would be legally allowed to carry out work that the younger less well trained sparks wouldn't be allowed to do due to the lack of training and experience they're gaining in safe live working practice (if I'm wrong on this point feel please correct me).

I'm not surprised they come across as sneering, when some of those younger sparks were trying to lay down the law to them and tell them what they've been doing all their working lives has been illegal since 1988.

Generally though, I tend to find the older sparks on this board as more shaking their heads in dismay at the lower levels of training and competence they're seeing in the younger sparks coming through into the industry rather than sneering at this, at least until a younger spark get's their backs up.