Lights and heights

[lofty84]

is there anything that says you cannot work above a certain height unless on a tower or scissor lift for example. The reason I ask is becasue im not that great with heights and unfortunately working at height is what the majority of my new job is. Im talkling 20ft plus up on a A frame ladder. To say I am ****ting myself is an understatment, I just hope I can get use to it lol. On occasions I will be expected to change 400w ballasts whilst at the top and these are pretty heavy, tewn spot lights are on the menu two which are even heavier and one is going to have to hold it up with one hand whilst screwing it in with another. basically I wont be holding on.

My next question if I may, whilst at the top of this a frame I am haveing to take down these lights that clip on to a light track system. The idea is to turn them of on there switch which has a 1 setting 2 setting 3 setting and off setting and then unclip them, take them back down the A frame and change the lamp inside them or take out the guts and put in new lighter ones because the heat destroys them, when i go back up with me new light and clip it in to the light rail and turn it onto settings 1,2,3 from the off position, there is enarf a scary arching noise happening. I know I should be messing about with this if I dont no what im doing but ive never had any exerience with commecial stuff and I just wanna reasure myself im not about to get electrocuted whilst clinging on to a metal A fram 20ft in the air.

 

[Andy78]

Look at it this way Lofty ( lol good name for one who hates heights ) If you were meant to follow orders blindly, take stupid risks by working unsafely at height, and work all the hours in the week, God would have made you a sign fitter.

 

[lofty84]

Does anyone know where all the replies from my other post about this have gone as I cant find them

 

[lofty84]

bump for post 28

 

[plugsandsparks]

bump for post 28

sorry no idea, suggest start again and make no assumptions

 

[D80]

20 foot up on A frames? I could maybe just about stomach that to do a simple lamp change, and wouldn't fancy lifting the A Frames between lights either. Is adrenalin brown?

Worst I ever did was on a Scaffold about 8M up, with the platform right at the top. Well when I say did I mean I hugged the platform almost for grim death handing tools to my mate as the lights got changed.I don't like heights at all, but 3 points of contact and I am reasonable ok, or surrounded by them like in a properly erected scaffold or a scissor lift.

If they want to get someone to do that job that way they will, but as you're uncomfortable with doing it I try and get better access equipment.

 

[Marvo]

Does anyone know where all the replies from my other post about this have gone as I cant find them

I can only see this one which is about the same job I assume but it's not a duplicate.

If there was a duplicate thread and it had no (constructive) replies it may have been deleted. If there was a duplicate thread and there were replies on both threads then they would have been merged.

You may have gathered by the long winded explanation I'm actually not sure where your other thread went

 

[lofty84]

Does anyone feel they can advise me about post 28 I think I nearly killed meself and wouldn't mind knowing why

 

[lofty84]

Basically I had to install a timer which would power the front of shop lights an hour after opening and an hour after closing and then they would turn of. I was told by the previous spark who worked in the store what breaker it was and set about isolating it. I took out the cable from the 16 amp breaker (red) and put it in a choc block, at the other end of the choc block i attaced a length of 2.5 brown and this went into the back of the timer L out. I then took another length of 2.5 brown cable and ran it from L in back into the breaker. I was told to then run a neautral from anywhere on the neautral bar to the N terminal in the back of the timer (I chose the nbeautral bar that was on the side that my breaker was on. and finally I put a cpc from the back of the timer cpc squere teminal to the earth bar again on the same side as the breaker. I turnt it on and bang there was a bright flash and all the lights and tills went down. after finding all the breakers which had tripped (in another board on another floor) power was restored but the timer was disconected and never installed. On the way home I was trying to think what had happened as I had followed the advise from the other sparky. The only thing I could think of was that there must have obcviously been another Neuatral and earth from the original red cable which was in the 16 amp breaker and this must have meant what was going out on the live wasnt coming back on the neautral as it had been split with two neautral cables if that makes sense, but then I thought that it wouldnt matter as they would have been on the same neutral bar ( I say the same but this was not proved

 

[plugsandsparks]

still have no idea

 

[lofty84]

as in you or me plugs

 

[Richard Burns]

Not sure what type of timer you are talking about but was it a 24V timer?
Did you connect the lines to coil terminals not input output terminals?
Not often you have an earth if it was Din rail mounted, are you sure it was a CPC terminal?

 

[D80]

What other breakers had tripped?

 

[plugsandsparks]

Was saying i cannot understand what went wrong. Lets have a look at the timer to see what coonections are available, can you post up the timer details, e.g. make and model, preferably with a schematic. It should not be hard to wire up but obviously something wentg wrong, big time. Cannot help until i can see what you are trying to do with the timer you have used.
It may be simply that you have wired it wrong and caused a direct short but don't know without seeing it.

 

[lofty84]

Guys I'm in desperate need of advise on what to say to the guy I'm working with. I can't get it through to his thick head that I want to isolate the supply to the light track as this arcing once I've taken the fitting down and changed the bulb and turn the thin back on could kill me. His answer is well I've never been bitten in 2 years but trust me it's sounds dodgy as ----, I'm only 3 meter up in the air today so not as bad as the usual 5 meters and I'm a least working of a pair of steps instead of a dodgy a frame. The **** is a lovely bloke I really mean that but he is not big on safety. His reasons for not turning the light track of is the customers won't be able to see the trainers I say well I might die just so they can see the trainers but he is adamant the track is staying on even tho I'm the ****ing sparky. I don't wanna walk from the job as it is such easy money but we are constantly argueing over this cos I wanna be safe and he doesn't want to risk the lights going of so the customer can't see and also there's a risk they won't come back on and we will need to rebuild the guts of which we don't have enough. My answer is let's load more on the van I don't gIve a shi if it takes longer and I have to work harder but he is all for the easy life. Before I chin him can someone help me word putting across my point. Ps he is dumb as **** so it need to be for dummies

From the bottom of my heart thanks ..... Absolutely raring haha

 

[lofty84]

Ps as soon as I get the chance to get a pic of the timer I will post it up Mate