Safety to your employees, customers, and visitors is always the moral responsibility of an employer. Electrical equipment on any facility always poses the dangerous threat of electrical accidents which can sometimes be quite fatal. In an educational facility, your customers are students, and this makes electrical security a much more important consideration among the many others. Educational facility electrical audits are required by almost all jurisdictions across the globe. These audits ensure that the facility does not put students, staff, or even visitors in harm's way when it comes to the use of electrical equipment. One key area focused on during these audits is electrical testing and tagging.
Electrical testing
As an educational institution, you must ensure that electrical equipment on use at the facility is tested for functionality and safety. All electrical equipment, cordless or not, must be tested, and a preventive mechanism schedule must be maintained. Some schools prefer the use of in-house staff to carry out electrical testing. This can save money, but the educational facility must ensure that the person performing the testing is a qualified professional.
Other educational facility electrical audits are organized among groups of schools. The collaboration amongst schools reduces the costs per school, while also ensuring that the same authorized individual gives a harmonized electrical testing across the schools. The testing interval on different equipment also varies. In cases involving equipment that is constantly moved, or the cords constantly flexed and bent, the recommended interval between electrical tests is shorter compared to that for fixed machinery.
Electrical tagging
Educational facility electrical audits are not complete without electrical tagging. Electrical tagging serves the obvious role of displaying specific information about electrical appliances to prevent chances of hazards. Tagging should be done in a clear and easy-to-discern manner. For electrical equipment used in harsh environments like power tools in class, tagging is an absolutely necessary requirement. Electrical equipment tagging must display the asset identity, the identity of the person performing the test, and the results of the electrical test. Further additional information on the tag should be the test date and the next scheduled test date, the site or location of the equipment, or even notes about the equipment. In many instances, the supplier of educational facility electrical audits provides the tags and does the entries themselves.
Remember, it is always a requirement to comply with regulations on electrical safety in educational facilities. Beyond in-house risk management strategies, all educational institutions should also take up the safety regulations of their jurisdictions to ensure all their beneficiaries are always safe.
Share19 August 2016
If you are working on a big project for your home, your business or an investment property, you may need to do some electrical work or hire an electrician during that process. If so, I want to help you with my blog full of tips and ideas. Hi, my name is Katie, and I was briefly an electrician before I left to start a design company. However, I still harbour an interest in electrical work, and because of that, I was inspired to create this blog. If you have questions about electricity, please explore my blog posts. If they help you, share them with your friends. Thank you!
