Adopting health and safety principles when working with electricals is really important. As electrical engineers, our teams have to rigorously adhere to the latest electrical safety standards to ensure your business is not put at risk. But what does electrical safety mean for you?
When our engineers are working on site, they must assess the risks around them. The risk of accident and injury is closely linked to where they are working. For example, certain surroundings can increase the risk of electrical danger, such as wet areas, water can conduct electricity, so become ‘live’, outdoor areas are also potentially a problem where equipment is naturally more susceptible to damage.
An often overlooked electrical danger is the extension lead; we have these in our homes when running various games consoles and TV / DVD systems but in large commercial areas the demand of an extension lead is much greater. This can mean that there is potential damage to plugs, sockets, connections and cables. These are elements thoroughly checked by a routine maintenance schedule with an experienced electrical engineer.
When our engineers aren’t on site working with you, it’s important to make sure your staff are well aware of hidden electrical dangers and encourage them to stay visually aware of anything that become more of an imminent hazard. For example, that faulty cable or the socket that is slowly coming away from the wall. It’s also very common for office workers to overload socket outlets with adapters which is a common cause of commercial fires. It’s easy to gloss over these things but they could pose a hazard.
A good way to minimise potential risks in a building is to limit the supply voltage to the lowest required in order to get the job done, although 110V is normally only available on building site. Also, regular maintenance and servicing can help to ensure there are no electrical safety hazards. Many of these potential hazards can be hard to detect without professional expertise, so even if you think there is nothing wrong it’s still best to get everything checked out properly. The environment you provide for your workers should always be as safe as it can be.
If you need more advice on electrical safety or would simply like us to review the number of sockets to ensure there is no overuse, please get in touch or find out more about our electrical services here.