Construction Safety Week is focused on highlighting the hazards of electricity.

Construction Safety Week is focused on highlighting the hazards of electricity and eliminating unnecessary accidents / incidents and near misses involving electricity.

Remember: Live electrical work is specialised and should only be completed by trained personnel.

• Speak up if you perceive there to be a safety issue / uncontrolled hazard.

• Ensure your planning, training and PPE are adequate for the task to be completed

Query:

If everybody in the construction industry knows that electricity can cause serious injuries and fatalities, why are people electrocuted every year?

• Lack of Training?
• Complacency?
• Trusting others to isolate services / equipment?

What aspects of your business / the construction industry could be improved to eliminate electrical safety hazards?

All feedback is welcome.

Do:

• Eliminate live electrical work where practical
• Document your safe plan of work via a RAMS
• Treat all services as live at all times
• Understand in advance the task + the equipment / system to be worked on
• Notify affected personnel before isolating services or equipment
• Safety Isolate the system before working on it – verify zero energy
• Lock and tag out the system (the tag is used to identify the isolator and their contact details)

Don’t:

• Work on potentially live equipment / systems you are not personally in control of (via LOTO)
• Take anyone’s word that a system is isolated / dead (always personally verify the system status)
• Work on any system with the potential to be live without personally applying your Lock & Tag
• Power up any system without verifying all cables are terminated
• never assume an open ended electrical cable is isolated
• Cut into cables without tracing it back to the panel and verifying it is disconnected
• Drill blindly into walls / risers / equipment without first verifying your safety
• Never Use interlock buttons / switches to falsely “isolate” equipment – equipment is only isolated safely when LOTO @ the source(s) of energy
• Remove Locks that you personally did not apply
• be a statistic!!!!!!!

Focus on Electrical Safety:

• TREAT ALL SERVICES AS LIVE
• PERSONALLY VERIFY ZERO ENERGY BEFORE COMMENCING YOUR TASK
• CONTROL SYSTEMS VIA LOCK OUT / TAG OUT

By Mick O’Connor: QSHE Manager – Mercury Engineering