ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Occupational Safety Discussion A shocking story: Here's one, tell me yours

here in germany, the first thing you learn in that business is the 5 safety rules:

1. Switch off
2. Assure not to be switched on again (Sign)
3. Check for voltage
4. Ground and short-circuit line
5. Cover hot parts next to your work

unfortunately, often only 1.-3. are done...

had to work on a hot line in my job as electronics engineer several times till i decided not to do it anymore for stupid reasons.

doing a service receptacle change in an office of the company i work in
"we can't shut this down, dont know which breaker this is hooked on"
-"no problem". pulled out the old rusty side cutter and just cut the cable, shocking the office employees BANG. "now go ahead and mark the damn breaker"...

my luck that there was no RCD, otherwise i'd darkened some 15+ PCs...
if i get the guy that installs a 20 breaker panel and doesnt mark a single one...

[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 10-18-2003).]

Gidday Andy!!,
Welcome to the Electrical Forum there, mate.
Yes, I must say that I agree with you, on the marking of panels, over here in New Zealand, you get very simple, if not, non-existant markings on our panels, most of the time you have to go by the ampere ratings on the MCB's.
You rewire or wire a whole place(taking probably half a week) and then you can't even spend 5-10 minutes identifying the circuits you have just installed, people like these, really annoy me!.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-20-2003).]

hi trumpy, thanks for the nice welcome!

i always mark my work, but i dont do building installations this often. identifying the cables you just installed is too late! just mark them while installing. we always do. insert the installed cable to the panel, cut on lenght (leaving some extra lenght) and mark with waterproof felt-tip onto cable.

and of course, mark breakers when connecting the cables to them.

[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 10-23-2003).]

Andy,
You're on to it mate!.
I wish everybody did the same as you, it is required by the Regulations over here, but most of our wire pullers, just thumb their noses at the law and on to the next job.
Hey, Andy, It's interesting how far a small thing like this can go!.
I was wiring a new Picture Theatre, a few years ago with an Apprentice and I told him to mark the cables at the panel end, as we installed them and cut them off.
He used sticky paper labels, which would have been OK, had a plumber not pressure-tested his pipes in the roof, and one of the seals blew out, soaking the whole panel area, we came back to find all the labels on the floor under the panel position.
Had to bell out 147 cables, I was not happy!.

in the beginning, when you're not so perfect into things, you do nice actions. as me. cut and strip 10+ cables in a panel, then realized i cut all cables without transferring the marks to the stripped phases....... 10 pieces of cables on the floor, now go puzzling...

this was a panel for production hall lighting, so we just hung a phase onto a breaker, switched on, looked which lights were on, switched off and marked...

Just today I got reminded that elevator lighting is usually connected to an emergency circuit and is not pulled through the disco for the elevator. And to not trust anybody but me with my safety.

Also--the neutral question.
We were working on a small 110 cicuit w/o much extra wire, shared neutral and our breaker off. The other guy handed me the neutral to hold out of the way, I was ok until I leaned on the column next to me. Unbalanced load can be a killer.

Another case for non-contact AC-voltage testers. No reason why you can't use it on parted neutral conductors. False-positive readings can be verified/”disqualified” by other means.

As I said, we both checked it, no power. Then he went around the room and flipped a couple of switches. Then I got hit. Then I checked it again and it was hot. He checked it again and it was hot.