JFletcher
Senior Member
- Location
- Williamsburg, VA
I have a few questions about energized wiring in residential work. One of my previous jobs was industrial plants, and any time the electrician was working on eqpt, a lockout had to be used. If multiple people were working on eqpt, a gang lock was used and each person/trade had their own lock. I thought this a great safety protocol. Tagouts, iirc, could only be used in temporary situations or if it was physically impossible to put a LO on the device/eqpt (applied to more than breakers).
In residential, I see power turned off by switches, or at best a breaker that is off and the circuit verified off by tester. Here are my concerns:
1) Say the new home has power, but not all of the eqpt is in (range, microwave, dishwasher, AC units, etc). These breakers are off, but what keeps another trade from going in the panel to reset a breaker, say from a tripped chopsaw, and energizing a circuit that isnt terminated to a receptacle/eqpt? Few resi panels have locking doors, and taping off the end of a wire, while better than nothing, doesnt seem right to me.
2) Say the same new, almost finished home has multiple trades working there. You have turned off power to a circuit you are working on. Same chopsaw trips breaker. The man goes to reset the breaker and by accident turns on the one you have your hands in. and to make this as bad as possible, say it's a 240V line to an AC in a HOT attic, and you are making the connections whilst leaning against a nice metal ductwork. Sounds like a bad day in the making.
I've also been on a fair number of commercial jobs where LO isnt used. My question is this (finally!): is LO/TO required for use anytime one might have their hands on wiring that could become energized? istm that LO/TO is largely ignored on smaller scale jobs. Is that because they are rarely OSHA inspected, or is it legal/permissable to do work on circuits that are not failsafe de-energized?
eta: after looking at lockout kits, it appears that tags are for the locks, not for sole circuit/eqpt isolation.
In residential, I see power turned off by switches, or at best a breaker that is off and the circuit verified off by tester. Here are my concerns:
1) Say the new home has power, but not all of the eqpt is in (range, microwave, dishwasher, AC units, etc). These breakers are off, but what keeps another trade from going in the panel to reset a breaker, say from a tripped chopsaw, and energizing a circuit that isnt terminated to a receptacle/eqpt? Few resi panels have locking doors, and taping off the end of a wire, while better than nothing, doesnt seem right to me.
2) Say the same new, almost finished home has multiple trades working there. You have turned off power to a circuit you are working on. Same chopsaw trips breaker. The man goes to reset the breaker and by accident turns on the one you have your hands in. and to make this as bad as possible, say it's a 240V line to an AC in a HOT attic, and you are making the connections whilst leaning against a nice metal ductwork. Sounds like a bad day in the making.
I've also been on a fair number of commercial jobs where LO isnt used. My question is this (finally!): is LO/TO required for use anytime one might have their hands on wiring that could become energized? istm that LO/TO is largely ignored on smaller scale jobs. Is that because they are rarely OSHA inspected, or is it legal/permissable to do work on circuits that are not failsafe de-energized?
eta: after looking at lockout kits, it appears that tags are for the locks, not for sole circuit/eqpt isolation.
