Introduction to Electrical Installation Work

Trevor Linsley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136270451
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This introductory guide to electrical installation work provides all the key concepts and practical know-how you need to pass your course, minus the difficult maths and complicated theory

Written in a clear, readable style and with a highly visual layout, this book will quickly provide you with the all-important knowledge you need to understand electrical installation work. End of chapter revision questions will help you to check your progress, and online animations and video demonstrations will help you get to grips with relevant theory and practice. Designed to match the 17th edition of the IEE Wiring Regulations and the new City & Guilds 2357 Diploma in Electrotechnical Technology, this book covers everything you need to get started on your path towards a career in electrical installation or related trades.

Also available:
Basic Electrical Installation Work 6th edition
Trevor Linsley
ISBN: 9780080966281

Working effectively and safely in an electrical environment

To support your learning, animated versions of some of the figures from this chapter are viewable for free from the book’s companion site. When you see the logo, visit the website below to access them:

www.elsevierdirect.com/companions/9780080969404

This chapter describes the requirements that are essential to enable electrotechnical activities to be carried out safely and effectively within the parameters set by the current safety legislation and best practice related to the electrotechnical industry.

Laws and Safety Regulations

The construction industry is one of the biggest industries in the United Kingdom, although most workers are employed by small companies employing less than 25 people.

The construction industry carries out all types of building work from basic housing to offices, hotels, schools and airports.

In all of these construction projects the electrotechnical industry plays a major role in designing and installing the electrical systems to meet the needs of those who will use the completed buildings.

The construction process is potentially hazardous because of the temporary nature of the project and many construction sites these days insist on basic safety standards being met before you are allowed on site. All workers must wear hard hats and safety boots or safety trainers and use low voltage or battery tools. When the building project is finished, all safety systems will be in place and the building will be safe for those who will use it. However, during the construction period temporary safety systems are in place. People work from scaffold towers, ladders and stepladders. Permanent stairways and safety handrails must be put in by the construction workers themselves.

When the electrical team arrives on site to, let us say, ‘first fix’ a new domestic dwelling house, the downstairs floorboards and the ceiling plasterboards will probably not be in place, and the person putting in the power cables for the downstairs sockets will need to step over the floor joists, or walk and kneel on planks temporarily laid over the floor joists.

The electrical team spend a lot of time on their hands and knees in confined spaces, on ladders, scaffold towers and on temporary safety systems during the ‘first fix’ of the process and, as a consequence, slips, trips and falls do occur.

To make all working environments safer, laws and safety regulations have been introduced. To make your working environment safe for yourself and those around you, you must obey all the safety regulations that are relevant to your work.

The many laws and regulations controlling the working environment have one common purpose, to make the working environment safe for everyone.

Let us now look at some of these laws and regulations as they apply to the electrotechnical industry.

Statutory Laws

Acts of Parliament are made up of statutes. Statutory laws and regulations have been passed by Parliament and have therefore become laws. The City & Guilds syllabus requires that we look at seven statutory regulations.

1. The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974

• The purpose of the HSAWA is to provide the legal framework for stimulating and encouraging high standards of health and safety at work.
• The Act places the responsibility for safety at work on both workers and employers.
• The HSAWA is an ‘Enabling Act’ which allows the Secretary of State to make further regulations and modify existing regulations to create a safe working environment without the need to pass another Act of Parliament.

Key fact

There are seven statutory laws.

2. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989

• These regulations are made under the Health & Safety at Work Act and are enforced by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE).
• The purpose of the regulations is to ‘require precautions to be taken against the risk of death or personal injury from electricity in work activities’.
• An electrical installation wired in accordance with the IEE Regulations BS 7671 will also meet the requirements of the EWR.

3. The Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002

• These regulations are designed to ensure a proper and safe supply of electrical energy up to the consumer’s mains electrical intake position.
• They will not normally concern the electrical contractor, except in that it is these regulations which set out the earthing requirements of the supply.

4. The Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999

• To comply with the Health & Safety at Work Act employers must have ‘robust health and safety systems and procedures in the workplace’.
• Employers must ‘systematically examine the workplace, the work activity and the management of safety through a process of risk assessment’.
• Information based upon the risk assessment findings must be communicated to relevant staff.
• So, risk assessment must form a part of any employer’s ‘robust policy of health and safety’.

5. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998

• These regulations place a general duty of care upon employers to ensure minimum requirements of plant and equipment used in work activities.
• If an employer has purchased good quality plant and equipment, and that plant and equipment is well maintained, there is little else to do.

6. The COSHH Regulations 2002

• The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) control people’s exposure to hazardous substances in the workplace.
• Employers must carry out risk assessments and, where necessary, provide PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) so that employees will not endanger themselves.
• Employees must also receive information and training in the safe storage, disposal and emergency procedures which are to be followed by anyone using hazardous substances.

7. The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 (PPE)

• PPE is defined as all equipment designed to be worn or held in order t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halt Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Working effectively and safely in an electrical environment
• Chapter 2. Basic principles of electrotechnology
• Chapter 3. Health and safety application and electrical principles
• Chapter 4. Installation (building and structures)
• Chapter 5. Environmental technology systems
• Solutions to assessment questions
• Appendix A: Environmental organizations
• Index