Procedure for The Inspection & Testing of Portable Electrical Appliances

Transcription

1 Procedure for The Inspection & Testing of Portable Electrical Appliances Approved By Harris Cooper Effective Date 15/11/10 Date Approved 04/11/10 Status Live Policy Owner Allan Petrie Impact Assessed Yes Version 1.0 Review Date Nov 2011 Issued 12/11/10 Issued to: RGU Management Board

2 Inspection and Testing of Portable Electrical Appliances Aims/Objectives The Robert Gordon University will ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that all electrical equipment that is provided for use within the work environment is free from risk of causing electrical shock or fire. To ensure compliance with the relevant legislation To ensure that responsibilities for testing portable appliances are unambiguous To prevent electric shock or burn to operators To prevent fires of an electrical origin Responsibilities Heads of Schools/Departments are responsible for ensuring that all portable electrical equipment provided by the School/Department is inspected and tested on a regular basis to ensure that no person is put at risk from the use of such equipment. Heads of Schools/Departments are responsible for ensuring that appropriate records of all electrical equipment are maintained to show what equipment has been inspected/tested and that these records are available when necessary. Heads of Schools/Departments are responsible for ensuring that portable electrical equipment is inspected/tested on a frequency that takes into consideration the risks arising from the use of the electrical equipment and the environment in which it is operated. All staff and students are responsible for ensuring that they comply with electrical safety procedures.

3 Guidance Introduction Nearly a quarter of all electrical incidents reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) involve portable electrical equipment with a major cause of these incidents being due to the failure to maintain the equipment. However, the HSE estimate that 95% of faults with electrical equipment can be found by just visually inspecting the equipment. Definitions Portable (or transportable) electrical equipment This includes any electrical item which may be moved from place to place between periods of use and is connected to a mains electrical supply via a flexible lead and plug and socket arrangement. As a result, this covers a wide range of electrical appliances from a printer or computer, to white domestic goods (including kettles) to sophisticated electronic instrumentation. User Check This is undertaken by the operator of the equipment and is a visual inspection of the equipment and cabling to; identify obvious damage to the cable or plug the adequacy of cable joints the appropriateness of the equipment for the working environment any damage to the external parts of the equipment any evidence of overheating Formal Visual Inspection This is undertaken by a competent person within the School or Department and consists of; removing the plug cover (where possible) checking the fuse is appropriate the cord grip is effective all cable terminations are secure and correct. Combined Inspection and Testing Undertaken by a competent person within the School or Department and consists of; ensuring the correct polarity of the cables the correct rating of fuse effective termination of cables testing the earth integrity and insulation integrity. Legal Duties Legal duties exist on the manufacturers and suppliers of portable electrical equipment to ensure the initial safety of new electrical equipment. The ongoing safety of portable electrical equipment rests with the employer and is implicit in Regulation 4(2) of the Electricity at Work Regulations:

4 as may be necessary to prevent danger, all (electrical) systems shall be maintained so as to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, such danger. In order to comply with this Regulation, guidance from the Health and Safety Executive advises an ongoing programme of formal visual inspection and formal visual inspection and safety testing. Guidance on Competency for Academic Schools Within Schools, persons who carry out portable appliance testing must have appropriate knowledge, training and information to enable them undertake the inspection/testing safely. It would be expected that the majority of technical staff will be competent to undertake both User Checks and Formal Visual Inspections without further formal training. The degree of competence required for undertaking a Combined Inspection and Test will be greater than that required for conducting a User Check or Formal Visual Inspection. It should be noted that it is the School s responsibility to ensure that the persons conducting the test are competent and training and supervision should be provided as required. Inspection and testing of portable electrical equipment is not any more technically complex than many of the other activities which technicians carry out in laboratories and it would be expected that Schools make their own arrangements for carrying out inspection and testing in offices, laboratories and workshops. This does not prevent Schools arranging for a competent external contractor to undertake the testing, but this should be arranged through the Estates and Property Services to ensure the competency of the contractor. Guidance on Competency for Support Departments For Departments and those Schools without technical support the Combined Inspection and Testing of portable electrical equipment should be arranged through the Estates and Property Services who will either undertake the testing internally or arrange for a competent contractor to do the test. Note that there may be a charge for testing undertaken internally. The Head of Department still retains responsibility for ensuring that portable electrical equipment is tested appropriately. However, it is expected that staff within Departments would be competent to undertake User Checks. Competencies are defined in Appendix B. Frequency of testing/inspection There is no definitive guidance on the frequency of testing portable electrical equipment and this should be based on an assessment of the risk. When assessing the risks, the following should be considered: The type of the equipment being used; The environment in which the equipment is being used; and The frequency with which the equipment is being used

5 In order to effectively control risks from portable electrical equipment an appropriate schedule should be developed to review new and existing pieces of portable electrical equipment. In setting up such a schedule, Appendix A highlights suggested initial intervals between both Formal Visual Inspections and Combined Inspections and Tests. These intervals can be used as a starting point but each situation must be considered individually according to the volume and frequency of use of the equipment. In addition to the recommended frequencies for inspections and testing outlined in Appendix A, it is important to highlight that Schools/Departments should routinely undertake inspections of their areas to ensure that electrical items that have been introduced since the last formal inspection or test are detected and incorporated into the process. This should be delegated to those persons who are in charge of these areas. Testing & Test Records Lasting safety of portable electrical equipment can only be achieved through routine and effective testing and maintenance. Testing will determine if a piece of equipment is safe to use or not. Routine inspection and testing should be seen as part of an overall strategy for ensuring that work equipment is maintained in a safe condition. Effective testing can be achieved by a combination of: Checks by users i.e. checking for damage to plug, cables & external casing of equipment, evidence of overheating Formal visual inspection by a person trained and appointed to conduct them i.e. removal of plug cover, checking the fuse, cord grip, signs of internal damage within the plug Combined inspection and test i.e. checking the correct fusing, earth integrity and insulation integrity Appendix B highlights the checks that are required and the persons to undertake these checks. Each School/Department must have a system in place where persons who undertake user checks can record and report any faults that they find in order that faulty equipment can be recorded and either repaired or disposed of. Any item which has failed should not be allowed back into service until it has been repaired by a suitably competent person. It should be clearly labelled as faulty and taken out of service. The equipment should then be stored in a secure location until repaired or disposed of. If the item is privately owned then it must be removed from RGU property. Note that any item that has been repaired must be re-inspected, and tested if appropriate, before being re-instated. A record should be kept of the nature of the repair, the repairer, the date, etc.

6 There is no formal requirement within the Electricity at Work Regulations to keep testing records for portable electrical equipment, there are a number of benefits to do so, including; Management tool for monitoring and reviewing the testing scheme; Enables managers to demonstrate that testing does take place; and, Useful as an inventory of equipment Audit trail for auditors and incident investigators Therefore, records of Combined Inspection and Tests must be retained. Records do not have to be based on a paper system and can be stored electronically. However, the records should be in a system which allows external persons to view and confirm that appropriate regular testing is being undertaken. In addition, the system used to act as an inventory of equipment must be updated when new items of electrical equipment are purchased in order that these can be incorporated into the testing regime. Use of Personal Equipment on Campus Heads of Schools/Departments may authorise staff/student to bring electrical equipment into the School/Department, but this equipment must be subjected to the testing protocols as outlined above. Guidance for equipment leased to Schools/Departments Leased equipment is the responsibility of the School/Department which leases the equipment. Therefore the School/Department will need to establish and agree with the leaser as to who is responsible to undertake the appropriate visual inspections and tests. IT equipment IT equipment is subject to the controls outlined within this Procedure and requires to be tested at appropriate intervals. The responsibility for testing IT equipment within Schools and Departments lies with the School/Department in question. For those areas which are deemed to be open-access computer suites then the responsibility for testing should be agreed between ITS and those Schools that have ownership of the rooms. Competent persons undertaking testing of IT equipment need to know what tests are relevant for the equipment being tested and if any alternative tests are required. Student Residencies The Student Accommodation Services will be responsible for ensuring that all electrical equipment supplied by the University for use by students within residencies is tested for electrical safety. Residents are responsible for ensuring that electrical equipment owned by them and used within the residencies is safe and appropriate for that environment. The Student Accommodation Services reserve the right to

7 remove any electrical equipment which is deemed to be unsafe or unsuitable. Fixed wiring The Estates and Property Services are responsible for the routine inspection, testing and ongoing maintenance of fixed wiring installations in all University buildings. This covers inspection and testing up to the final means of isolation and does not cover any equipment supplied from the plug socket.

8 Appendix A Frequency of inspection and combined inspection and testing Suggested Initial Testing Intervals Type of Equipment Battery Operated (< 20V) Extra Low Voltage (< 50V AC) Equipment Hire Light Industrial Equipment Heavy Industrial Equipment/high risk of damage Office IT Equipment (computers, printers, fax machines, etc) Double Insulated Equipment, not Hand Held (fans, table lamps, etc) Hand Held Double Insulated Equipment (floor cleaners, kitchen equipment, irons, etc) Earthed (Class 1) equipment (kettles, some floor cleaners) Cables & plugs, extension leads User Checks for obvious damage Formal Visual Inspection Combined Inspection & Test No No No No No No No Yes, at regular intervals Daily No Before Issue/After Return Before Initial Use, Then 6 Monthly Weekly 2 to 4 Years Before Issue 6 Months to 1 Year 6 Months to 1 Year None If Double Insulated Otherwise up to 5 Years No 2 to 3 Years No Yes, at regular intervals Yes, at regular intervals Yes, at regular intervals 6 Months to 1 Year 6 Months to 1 Year No 1 to 2 years 1 Year 2 Years

9 Appendix B Testing Schedule Test Conducted By Test To Include User Checks Formal Visual Inspection Combined Inspection & Tests Equipment User Competent Person Within School/Department or via Estates and Property Services Competent Person Within School/Department or via Estates and Property Services Check damage on cable sheath, damage to plug, inadequate joints i.e. taped joints, equipment unsuited to environment, damage to equipment casing, evidence of overheating Remove plug cover and check fuse, check cord grip is effective, check cable termination secure & correct Check correct polarity of supply cables, correct fusing and effective termination of the cables, check equipment suitable for environment, check both earth and insulation integrity Competency Expected None, apart from critically examining the equipment prior to use Competent person nominated by Head of School or Deputy (a) Competent person trained to an appropriate level (b) (a) (b) The competent person will have sufficient information and knowledge of what to look for and what is acceptable. To avoid danger, the competent person should know when the limit of their knowledge and experience has been reached. Please view the accompanying guidance document for further information. It is expected that the competent person will have undertaken training since the results from testing may require interpretation and an appropriate level of electrical knowledge will be required. Training can include the City & Guilds Level 3 Certificate for the In-Service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment or a course aligned to the IET Code of Practice for In-Service Inspection & Testing