Health and safety in schools

[mac.calder]

sorry to argue with you guys who know a lot more than me and have more experience, I respect that. But to put my side a bit more....

 

The fact that we overloaded the rig was to do with the lack of understanding by the staff producing the said talent show's insistance on what lighting they wanted, and what kit they could see available in the store. This is part of the point I was trying to make, that in general people should know more and trust people who tell them that something shouldn't be done. It harks back to the earlier post about teachers (whether with knowledge or not) overruling people on these issues.

 

And yet you still did it. THAT is the problem. You knew it was unsafe, and you did it. Schools have a chain of command. Drama teacher overrules you, so you go and see someone who can overrule them. You make them overrule the teacher. And you do it before you perform the unsafe act.

 

On the point about the blue plugs - yes they are most certainly a more modern part of the set - up. They are, however, tapped off the same power supply as the original rig, and nowhere is there anything saying how much power is available. When I say 60A supply, I mean that it has 60A plugs, not that there is any evidence that is how much power is available. And surely, even when we did overload the rig, a fuse should have blown before the plugs melted?

 

To reply to the point about "hacksawing away at mains connections" or whatever. 

When I said isolate, I probably wasn't specific enough. There is one of these large blue 4 pin plug assemblies at the RCD end, with a cable connected to it, on the other end of said cable are the 3pin caravn type plugs which we run the dimmers off. The way I "isolated" it was by removing this cable from the socket, so when I was sawing off the other end of the plug it was connected to nothing, quite literally.

 

RIGHT... even so it was not safe, and you had no right to do it. There is no excusing that.

 

If something like that happens it NEEDS to be left to be dealt with appropriately. The electrician should come in, shake his head at the stupidity of all parties involved, brown fecal matter should hit some form of rotating air circulation device.

 

If this has a 60A plug and may not be able to give 60A, then the damn thing needs to be removed and replaced with the correct plug. So let us just assume that you managed to remove all signs of a screwup. Next week, someone else bumps in, the building burns down due to the fact that instead of the plug they used metling, it caused a fire. Now apart from the weight on your conscience, there is the fact that you were negligent and should have taken it out of commission.

 

I am sorry if the air of my posting seemed to indicate that I was in any way bragging about the incident or proud of it or anything like that, it was a "good story" in the sense that it highlights a lot of issues about safety in the particular environment. I take the points of all later posters about over - confidence and inexperience etc etc. And fair enough, I have not much experience. But I am not completely stupid, and I realise that playing with electricity is dangerous to say the least. I would not touch a live wire of any description if there was a chance it was still live, my dad was an electrician for 30 years and taught me by the age of about 6 to be careful about these things. What worries me is that some people are what you might call even more cavalier about safety, don't know what things are or why you shouldn't touch them. For example one guy in the same school whilst I was not available plugging the powered output of a 1600w amp into the input of some powered monitors... I ask you.....

 

With your sawing of the plug there was the chance it was still live. Remote, but the chance was there. As for this other idiot, I think your school should be shut down. WHAT THE HELL WAS A STUDENT DOING TOUCHING EQUIPTMENT HE WAS NOT COMPETENT ENOUGH TO TOUCH! Jesus f'in christ. Your school should be bulldozed with half the students still in there.

 

I just want to say that I totally agree with more safety training and more care about H&S issues. The reason I think a lot of students take risks with the safety is that they are passionate about what they want to create, and if they did not put in so much time and effort to their work it would simply not happen.

 

So these students love their work SOOOO much that death is nothing to them. There is NO excuse for endangering people... including themselves. And it takes about as much time to do things safely as it does to do them un-safely. Often a lot less.

 

edit: we've been assured everything will be PAT tested by next year.....

 

oh and risk assessment?what risk assessment? Any school I have seen productions in, especially small, insignificant ones have not had the time or money to RA the events.

 

MONEY! It costs NOTHING to do a Risk Assessment! You grab a pen and paper, you use your brains, eyes, ears, noses, tongues, hands and look for EVERY SINGLE RISK you can find. Then you assess how you can either eliminate, or reduce risks.

 

IE:

 

Problem: Lantern hanging over heads

Risk: Falling onto heads and injuring

Elimination: Impossible

Reduction: Atatch safety chains able to bear the weight of the lantern around the yoke and LX Bar to provide a form of fall arrest.

 

It's that simple. I believe their is a good brochure (about 12 pages long) published in the UK. I suggest you get it and read it before bed one night.

[J Pearce]

There is no excuse for deliberately over loading a rig, if the teacher wants to overload it, warn them and go home. You told them, it is no longer your fault or problem.

 

People being morons is what gets young people a bad name. I have been fortunate in receiving proper training and being trusted. Many others haven't because people see things like this happening and think what is the point?

 

I have once created a situation where a plug could be over loaded , but I knew what its supply was rated at and what the cable was rated at, and the circuit was fused at the limit for the plug. I was also frequently checking the plug for warmth, and doing P=IV calculations when creating scenes to make sure I was not over 13A.

 

I was trusted and I didn't blow anything up, the director knew the situation regarding power and knew that when I said that's what you're getting that she couldn't have any more.

[weatherhead]

RIGHT... even so it was not safe, and you had no right to do it. There is no excusing that.

 

If something like that happens it NEEDS to be left to be dealt with appropriately. The electrician should come in, shake his head at the stupidity of all parties involved, brown fecal matter should hit some form of rotating air circulation device.

 

If this has a 60A plug and may not be able to give 60A, then the damn thing needs to be removed and replaced with the correct plug. So let us just assume that you managed to remove all signs of a screwup. Next week, someone else bumps in, the building burns down due to the fact that instead of the plug they used metling, it caused a fire. Now apart from the weight on your conscience, there is the fact that you were negligent and should have taken it out of commission.

 

exactly, this is the issue I'm trying to highlight. I'm not excusing what anyone did including myself but I'm just saying that's the way it happened, and after I told them it was unsafe and they realised it was unsafe they said they were getting an electrician in.... that was a couple of months ago and to my knowledge this hasn't happened and there isn't much chance of it happening.

 

With your sawing of the plug there was the chance it was still live. Remote, but the chance was there.

 

I may start looking reeeaaaaaally stupid here, but I don't see how it could have been live, in any way, when I had both ends of the cable unplugged, except that one was welded to the dimmer rack. I could see both ends, and it wasn't plugged into anything.

 

WHAT THE HELL WAS A STUDENT DOING TOUCHING EQUIPTMENT HE WAS NOT COMPETENT ENOUGH TO TOUCH!

if you're talking about me there then that's because of bad judgement on the part of the school, if you're talking about the n00b who wired the speakers up, it's because he follows us around places, thinks he knows about stuff and when some PE teacher casually mentions to him they want some sound reinforcement he takes it into his own hands. And yes I've tried personally to get rid of him, and yes by going to a senior management member. And no, it doesn't work, he's so god damned persistant.

 

So these students love their work SOOOO much that death is nothing to them. There is NO excuse for endangering people... including themselves. And it takes about as much time to do things safely as it does to do them un-safely. Often a lot less.

 

I wholeheartedly agree, but the problem is many do not know about safety and won't take advice from those who know slightly more than them ( hence the teacher overruling us about loading the rig up)

 

MONEY! It costs NOTHING to do a Risk Assessment! You grab a pen and paper, you use your brains, eyes, ears, noses, tongues, hands and look for EVERY SINGLE RISK you can find. Then you assess how you can either eliminate, or reduce risks.

 

ah, I see. Well if that is what constitutes a full risk assessment we do it, as in the student techs do it. But I thought that it was more involved to be "official" - my mum is a teacher of chemistry and I know every time she does a practical or something she has to spend about 3 hours filling in funny looking forms and stuff, and adhering to the protocol. So I thought something "official" had to be done. Since we fried the rig, I've written a letter to our head of music (the one who most people consider responsible for our hall setup) about my feelings in the situation, and it seemed to worry her as much as me what the teachers who were overruling us were doing.

There is no excuse for deliberately over loading a rig, if the teacher wants to overload it, warn them and go home. You told them, it is no longer your fault or problem.

well we warned them, but I'm not one for the going home part. If I had they would probably have decided to work out how to do it themselves, and I'd prefer to know what's happened to the rig, good or otherwise than have a nasty surprise later on. Like I said earlier I'm not excusing overloading the rig, but it happens...... because some ppl will not listen to / are too foolish to understand the basic laws of physics.

I have once created a situation where a plug could be over loaded , but I knew what its supply was rated at and what the cable was rated at, and the circuit was fused at the limit for the plug. I was also frequently checking the plug for warmth, and doing P=IV calculations when creating scenes to make sure I was not over 13A.

 

Yes, have done the same, generally using one of those household "electricity monitor" thingies. When we run a decently organised event I.e a production or concert, we make sure of these things, we at least know about the event more than half an hour before it is going to take place, the things organised by other departments like talent shows, fashion shows etc. the people organising them don't know that we actually need to know in time to set stuff up properly and safely. They just come in and expect flashing lights within two minutes from cold.... the old problem of "plotting at curtain" again, if on a smaller scale.

[Tomo]

{snip}

So I thought something "official" had to be done.

{snip}

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, it does.

 

A risk assessment is an official document, whose purpose is to prove that you have:

a) thought about the risks and

b) done as much as is reasonable to reduce them.

 

This stuff then gets filed along with the rest of the show or venue documents (like COSHH sheets), and all workers affected by it must know what is in them.

 

However, it isn't a case of filling out the forms and forgetting about it - if you didn't follow the procedures outlined in the RA then you are just (if not more) culpable than if one hadn't been done in the first place.

 

On the other hand, they are fairly simple to do.

The HSE have sample docs to adjust to your needs, and training is available.

There must be someone in your school who knows what they entail - find them!

 

If you have input into the RA the chances are that you are more likely to follow them - and you may even find risks and/or solutions that your teacher wouldn't have thought of. This is good!

[kerry davies]

Question for all students.

If it is illegal to do ANY rewiring in your own home (where the occupant is most at risk) without an electrical qualification, why is it OK for students to play with electrical installations in a public space?

If it is illegal to work at height on a building site (without adequate training, PPE, third party protection etc) why is it OK for students to do it in that public space?

THINK ABOUT IT! Please!

Great to see the debate.

[Russ]

ah, I see. Well if that is what constitutes a full risk assessment we do it, as in the student techs do it. But I thought that it was more involved to be "official" - my mum is a teacher of chemistry and I know every time she does a practical or something she has to spend about 3 hours filling in funny looking forms and stuff, and adhering to the protocol. So I thought something "official" had to be done.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well the chemists' risk assessment is just the same as anyone else, it's just they have to fill one in for every experiment and get it signed off by the departmental safety officer, so it tends to be more involved. It's quite tricky for bigger experiments, since you have to add stuff about every chemical and process used. Takes all the fun out of chemistry if you ask me :D. Anyhow, bit of a tangent there.

 

Question for all students.

If it is illegal to do ANY rewiring in your own home (where the occupant is most at risk) without an electrical qualification, why is it OK for students to play with electrical installations in a public space?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Sorry, I had to pick this up. It's not illegal to do any rewiring in your own home without electrical qualification. You do have to get building control certification for it now (as of January 1st), and it is illegal to do it incorrectly. The HSE has no bearing on what you do in the comfort of your own home :D.

 

A lot of the electrical qualification bodies are trying to spread the disinformation that it's totally illegal. But at least it's vaguely productive disinformation I suppose...

 

Commercial/industrial installations are obviously different (insurance-wise for a start), but it appears that weatherhead wasn't talking about an installed socket but what might be construed as an extension lead. And if it's not an installation you are allowed to hacksaw it as much as you like. Indeed if there was equipment with a 60A plug on it which was obviously drawing more than that, the safest thing to do would be to take a hacksaw to the cable . Obviously it would need re-PAT testing when fixed though.

 

Anyhow, the question is more whether weatherhead was proven to be qualified enough in H&S terms, and I think there the answer is no, and there the failure lies.

 

This forum always ends up with nit-picking, but I think it's important to have the truth in plain view.

[mac.calder]

exactly, this is the issue I'm trying to highlight. I'm not excusing what anyone did including myself but I'm just saying that's the way it happened, and after I told them it was unsafe and they realised it was unsafe they said they were getting an electrician in.... that was a couple of months ago and to my knowledge this hasn't happened and there isn't much chance of it happening.

 

I have one word (hyphenated) - Whistle-blowers. Surely the UK has something like that. Report them. When official guys in suits come with nerdy guys with meters and start testing things, then hand them a piece of paper filled with "Things to fix or we will have your @ss on a platter", things get fixed.

 

I may start looking reeeaaaaaally stupid here, but I don't see how it could have been live, in any way, when I had both ends of the cable unplugged, except that one was welded to the dimmer rack. I could see both ends, and it wasn't plugged into anything.

 

Did you KNOW that it was unpluged everywhere? Could you see the entire assembly - from one end to the other, and be sure there was no branching or anything? I have seen people with dimmer racks who's extension cords scare me to death - unplugging in one place resulting in no only one end being live, but the end unplugged being live too (commonly called a widdow maker - highly illegal) From the way it read, there was no way you could see the entire cable... maybe I read incorrectly, if so, I appologise

 

if you're talking about me there then that's because of bad judgement on the part of the school, if you're talking about the n00b who wired the speakers up, it's because he follows us around places, thinks he knows about stuff and when some PE teacher casually mentions to him they want some sound reinforcement he takes it into his own hands. And yes I've tried personally to get rid of him, and yes by going to a senior management member. And no, it doesn't work, he's so god damned persistant.

 

Right..... One assumes you keep your equiptment locked up, and only tech staff (ie the drama teacher) or the office keeps the key... Then one wonders... HOW THE HELL DID HE GET THE KEY. That is the thing... Even if he is persistant, he should not be able to get to the equiptment anyway, and if the PE teacher requisitioned this equiptment, then this PE teacher should have her salary garnished for his/her irresponsibility and destroying some good equiptment.

 

I wholeheartedly agree, but the problem is many do not know about safety and won't take advice from those who know slightly more than them ( hence the teacher overruling us about loading the rig up)

 

Exactly. Which is why I believe in a thorough induction process, and the fact that all schools should have at least one teacher trained in electricity, climbing ladders etc, and should have the final say in any decisions made regarding the rig. It should not be a suggestion either. It should be law. The basics can be taught in a day, and every student who is using the space can be inducted in an hour if they know theatre, or 2 if they dont. Said trained teacher should be there for all bump-ins and outs. If it is after hours, they should be paid a token sum if necessary, although if it was the head of drama or whatever, usually they would come in anyway, so it is not necessary.

 

ah, I see. Well if that is what constitutes a full risk assessment we do it, as in the student techs do it. But I thought that it was more involved to be "official" - my mum is a teacher of chemistry and I know every time she does a practical or something she has to spend about 3 hours filling in funny looking forms and stuff, and adhering to the protocol. So I thought something "official" had to be done. Since we fried the rig, I've written a letter to our head of music (the one who most people consider responsible for our hall setup) about my feelings in the situation, and it seemed to worry her as much as me what the teachers who were overruling us were doing.

 

Yes, there are official RA's, but if you cannot 'Afford' to do a full official RA, then at least what I showed you would help reduce risks. I believe that you can download template forms online, I live in Australia, so I cannot tell you URL's, although I could email you mine if you want it.

 

well we warned them, but I'm not one for the going home part. If I had they would probably have decided to work out how to do it themselves, and I'd prefer to know what's happened to the rig, good or otherwise than have a nasty surprise later on. Like I said earlier I'm not excusing overloading the rig, but it happens...... because some ppl will not listen to / are too foolish to understand the basic laws of physics.

 

...

 

Yes, have done the same, generally using one of those household "electricity monitor" thingies. When we run a decently organised event I.e a production or concert, we make sure of these things, we at least know about the event more than half an hour before it is going to take place, the things organised by other departments like talent shows, fashion shows etc. the people organising them don't know that we actually need to know in time to set stuff up properly and safely. They just come in and expect flashing lights within two minutes from cold.... the old problem of "plotting at curtain" again, if on a smaller scale.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The fact is by staying there, in another setting, and in a few years, a negligence law suit could land slap bang on your head because you did not walk out the door..

 

As for the no notice, you say to them "Why did you not ask earlier...."

 

Then you pull out a desk lamp, gell it with some funky colour and hand it to them and say "There you go, plug that in somewhere. If I had some more time, I could do something a bit better". If they give you half and hour, pull out a profile, and focus it into a circle, straight down, and then leave it on all night. Then go home, safe in the knowledge that next time, they will call your right at the start of their planning sessions...

 

Or, my favorite, write up some forms, asking about thier full requirements, date of show etc, then make them available. I gather they have to book the venue? That would be done weeks in advance, I am sure, so they cannot use the excuse "Oh, I did not know WHEN we would be performing". If it is a talent act, you still need to know WHERE they will be standing etc, so the burden is on the organising teacher to draw up a stage plot, and to distribute and get all the plots back so that you can view them, change them etc. If they are not returned, they perform in the dark.

 

Being a school, you have that power.

 

You can ask them to submit a script to you, or a running order, etc etc. If they cannot use the equiptment, and you can, then you can set the demands. You can tell them where to shove it. You can say "No, don't do that you idiot" or "No, that is illegal and will not work"... The great thing about student based theatres is you can get the 'Director/Producer' overruled, by going to the principal with a copy of your risk assessments, and with a scrap of paper which shows the rig overloaded, and say "I want you to overrule him/her. S/he is being unsafe and endangering not only the schools facilities, but also the lives of the performers and audience."

 

S/he will look at your calculation, which probably make no sense to him, then s/he will say "Really", you nod, they call the teacher in, with you there often, and say "Did you ask him to... and did you know that it would... Why didn't you listen to..." of course that is ideal, sometimes you have to go over the head of the principal. In Australia, that means going to the school council, which 9 out of 10 times will end up with someone who is either knowledgeable with electricity, or married to one who is, or with a physics teacher, who will nod and say "Damn straight." and agree with you. Of course whilst this is happening, you refuse to do it. Of course you have the time to do that, as you have told them it is not possible when they handed you their LX plot I hope.

[Darkfold]

I agree with ^^

 

I get all my calculations on power draw checked by our Physics dept, so I know when I say 'you cant do that, take a hike' that I am right.

 

Slightly scary for me tho is that when the school installed our rig, they did not keep the original documentation regarding SWL or what was wired to which phase. Really annoying and in some cases dangerous.

 

I have actually handed someone a desk lamp and told them to 'wing it' before. Very funny and it gets your point across to all the staff since it is so embarrasing.

[J Pearce]

AT college all equipment is locked up and the master breaker for the dimmers is padlocked. There are 3 keys, one is with the technician/teacher, one is with site services, and one is available if a touring crew are in.

 

If I am running the rig for a concert and it is a rare occasion when the technician/teacher can't make it he will give me the tourers key and check my set-up before giving me the power key.

He trusts me and my other colleague to run things safely, and we know if we cocked up we would be shown the door. For that reason we don't make mistakes, we check twice before applying power to anything, and we don't use scaff unless the technician/teacher or a site services staff member is supervising us.

 

With reference to someone demanding lighting with 5 min warning, read my posts in "Story of a student technician" regarding the GCSE drama groups.

[lonfire]

hi,

although I agree with everybodies comments about doing things properly and not doing stuff thats dangerous I think you have to remember the situation these guys are in.. they are AT SCHOOL, which for most of their school life they are not adults, they might not have the strength of character to stand up to an authority figure (i.e. a teacher).. again this doesn't make it right or safe.. when I was at school it was a privilege todo lights and sound stuff which the staff could use against you at times.. but because you loved doing it you got on with it (I'm not talking about doing stuff thats dangerous here)..

 

luckily when I was at school there was a non-teaching member of staff that had experience of doing lighting/sound outside of the school and was also electrically competent.. and he handled the flack from the drama teachers and stuff, something which I'm very grateful for.. when he left in my sixth form I soon stopped doing stuff because of the hassle I got, and I also got my lighting/sound fix outside of school..

 

also suggesting that these guys:

pull out a desk lamp, gell it with some funky colour and hand it to them and say "There you go, plug that in somewhere. If I had some more time, I could do something a bit better". If they give you half and hour, pull out a profile, and focus it into a circle, straight down, and then leave it on all night. Then go home, safe in the knowledge that next time, they will call your right at the start of their planning sessions...

 

I think the way that would go down would be more like "then go home, safe in the knowledge that next time, they wont let you do anything because your a cheeky git".. well at the school I went to that would certainly be the outcome..

 

so my advice:

if they ask you todo something unsafe.. don't do it.. but don't be cheeky about it, try and suggest you get a second opinion from somebody about it.. the suggestion of a physics teacher is a good one..

 

about people using kit that they don't know how to use (not dangerously, just stupidly), well that might just have to be something you live with.. I'm sure everybody who did this stuff at school broke or damaged some piece of kit during their school life..

 

with any of the situations described perhaps the best way is to suggest things so the teacher (that might not have a clue) can claim it as their idea.. try to make allies not enemies.. and stay safe.. even if you have to quit doing it..

 

I understand why laws/guidelines..etc are brought in for safety reasons but sometimes I think this is actually producing a generation of young people whos only experience is playing computer games and drinking.. how many of us learnt important lessons about how to be responsible and respect people/kit when we were younger which have stuck with us for life..

 

[flack helmet on]

why don't some of you pro guys offer to go to a couple of schools and look over what they do.. in an un-offical capacity don't want you getting sued!

 

rgds

chris

 

p.s. like I said I'm NOT condoning the dangerous use of kit/power in schools!

[weatherhead]

thanks for the advice about the RA's I will look into that.

 

Did you KNOW that it was unpluged everywhere? Could you see the entire assembly - from one end to the other, and be sure there was no branching or anything?

 

yessir, one end was a plug, the other end was another plug, welded to a dimmer rack, with nothing plugged into it. Not hardwired, no taps or joints or junctions anywhere.

 

Sorry, I had to pick this up. It's not illegal to do any rewiring in your own home without electrical qualification. You do have to get building control certification for it now (as of January 1st), and it is illegal to do it incorrectly. The HSE has no bearing on what you do in the comfort of your own home .

 

My understanding from my uncle who teaches this stuff to apprentice electricians was that under the new "part P" any electrical work AT ALL you do ANYWHERE has to be checked out by a certified sparky, and he has to ratify it and give you a certificate. If you just throw it together yourself and don't have the certificates you would probably run into all sorts of difficulty when trying to sell your house

 

Right..... One assumes you keep your equiptment locked up, and only tech staff (ie the drama teacher) or the office keeps the key... Then one wonders... HOW THE HELL DID HE GET THE KEY. That is the thing... Even if he is persistant, he should not be able to get to the equiptment anyway, and if the PE teacher requisitioned this equiptment, then this PE teacher should have her salary garnished for his/her irresponsibility and destroying some good equiptment.

 

We do keep some of the equipment locked up very securely, but we don't have the secure storage space to lock up the 20 flightcases of leads, 1600w amp and HK speaks, and the 300w monitors, among some other stuff. Just left lying around in a fairly hidden place backstage that not many people know about. This guy does... hmmmm, I've also never seen anyone do an official req. order for any gear off us. Maybe this would be a goof idea in the future, if a little bit more red tape to follow.

 

Exactly. Which is why I believe in a thorough induction process, and the fact that all schools should have at least one teacher trained in electricity, climbing ladders etc, and should have the final say in any decisions made regarding the rig. It should not be a suggestion either.

 

The guy who used to do that has been kicked upstairs to senior management and no longer takes any interest.

The fact is by staying there, in another setting, and in a few years, a negligence law suit could land slap bang on your head because you did not walk out the door..

 

As for the no notice, you say to them "Why did you not ask earlier...."

 

Then you pull out a desk lamp, gell it with some funky colour and hand it to them and say "There you go, plug that in somewhere. If I had some more time, I could do something a bit better". If they give you half and hour, pull out a profile, and focus it into a circle, straight down, and then leave it on all night. Then go home, safe in the knowledge that next time, they will call your right at the start of their planning sessions...

 

Or, my favorite, write up some forms, asking about thier full requirements, date of show etc, then make them available. I gather they have to book the venue? That would be done weeks in advance, I am sure, so they cannot use the excuse "Oh, I did not know WHEN we would be performing". If it is a talent act, you still need to know WHERE they will be standing etc, so the burden is on the organising teacher to draw up a stage plot, and to distribute and get all the plots back so that you can view them, change them etc. If they are not returned, they perform in the dark.

 

we made up some forms n stuff about a year ago with that kind of thing on. The music and drama departments are always very cooperative, but no matter how many times we've told these others they still expect the impossible... trust me if I was working in this and liable to get sued, I would have walked out. The whole point about the calculations and stuff is also involved - when the notice and the time is there I always do the load calcs etc. and I think after what you guys have said here if I do any more work for this school I will be more rigid in what ppl ask and what I deliver.

 

And if it's not an installation you are allowed to hacksaw it as much as you like. Indeed if there was equipment with a 60A plug on it which was obviously drawing more than that, the safest thing to do would be to take a hacksaw to the cable . Obviously it would need re-PAT testing when fixed though.

 

thanks, I'm not sure about hacksawing anything being the safest way, but when I got that cable out of the loop after having tried everything else I could think of including numerous leverage and screwdriver applications, it ended up the only option.

 

p.s. sorry for the monster post, I got carried away...

 

 

p.p.s sorry for the even more monster post, but had to add this bit

 

Anyhow, the question is more whether weatherhead was proven to be qualified enough in H&S terms, and I think there the answer is no, and there the failure lies.

 

This forum always ends up with nit-picking, but I think it's important to have the truth in plain view.

 

A very good point indeed, and I have never met anyone in the amateur sphere doing this kind of thing who is qualified in this respect, unless they have it as a by - product of their day job or whatever..... The only qualification I have remotely relevant is an SJFAW...

[Russ]

Sorry, I had to pick this up. It's not illegal to do any rewiring in your own home without electrical qualification. You do have to get building control certification for it now (as of January 1st), and it is illegal to do it incorrectly. The HSE has no bearing on what you do in the comfort of your own home .

 

My understanding from my uncle who teaches this stuff to apprentice electricians was that under the new "part P" any electrical work AT ALL you do ANYWHERE has to be checked out by a certified sparky, and he has to ratify it and give you a certificate. If you just throw it together yourself and don't have the certificates you would probably run into all sorts of difficulty when trying to sell your house

 

Yeah, you're kind of right, you have to pay a fee to the council's building control department who then may or may not send someone around to check it (I've not done any work which requires that yet, so I don't have any experience in the new Part P, and I'm looking into getting qualified so I can self-certify that stuff anyway). The point I was trying to make is that it isn't illegal (although it's no secret that they're trying to discourage DIY electrics, for better or for worse).

 

Anyhow, the question is more whether weatherhead was proven to be qualified enough in H&S terms, and I think there the answer is no, and there the failure lies.

 

A very good point indeed, and I have never met anyone in the amateur sphere doing this kind of thing who is qualified in this respect, unless they have it as a by - product of their day job or whatever..... The only qualification I have remotely relevant is an SJFAW...

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I said "qualified" in that sentence when I actually meant "competent": the HSE doesn't say you necessarily need to have a qualification, but does bring up the vague issue of competence (obviously the former does tend to imply the latter though).

 

I do quite a lot of electrical work for amateur stuff and as long as you're not touching the existing installed wiring, and you know what you're doing, then you're fine.

 

However, in the event of an incident, it would probably be tricky for the school to prove that a minor was appropriately competent in such electrical matters, and therein lies the problem (as I've been saying).

[ojc123]

I've said it on other posts and I repeat it here. I really worry about the number of school students who are allowed to do things beyond their experience and qualifications and without adequate supervision. I'm all for the learning experience but one of these days there will be a collision between brown stuff and ventilator. School drama and music will suffer in the same way that school trips are suffering.

 

Teachers are generally not sufficiently aware of the technical issues nor have they the time to do these activities properly. Some of the school situations described in these fora are terrifying. Just off to pop a Prozac. :huh:

[Jivemaster]

The knowledge we have comes from learning and doing, formally or informally. There are several places where HSE states that young people need closer supervision than adults simply because of their lack of experience. The problem is that the experience only comes by taking risks!

 

Risk and hazard analysis will GREATLY assist you to understand and minimise the risks.

Hazards are things that COULD go wrong

Risk is the probability of a hazard happening

The risk minimisation process is the means of making the tasks as safe as possible --nothing is completely safe!

 

If there is an established risk assessment USE IT checking that you understand it. Other wise Look at the task and do your own RA then check with the manager/licence holder, there may still be local regs and insurers regs to follow

A risk assessment is FREE you do it yourself you look for hazards and minimise the risk of occurance, only when the risks are minimised do you look at PPE to further reduce the impact of the hazard, only then do you consider a safe method for doing the task. THe method statement shows that you have thought about the hazards and found a way to minimise them.

 

GO NOW and do a HA RA and MS for crossing a road

Hazard - being struck by traffic

Risk - according to traffic density

Minimisation - use adequate gap in traffic - use controlled crossing

[Andrew C]

GO NOW and do a HA RA and MS for crossing a road

Hazard - being struck by traffic

Risk - according to traffic density

Minimisation - use adequate gap in traffic - use controlled crossing

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Almost!

Hazard - being struck by traffic

Risk - according to traffic density - lighting conditions - old person/child...

Minimisation - use bridge - use controlled crossing - use adequate gap in traffic - wear PPE (high vis jacket)