What DO you wear (not what SHOULD you wear)

[don_resqcapt19]

I don't understand this comment. Where does this rule come from? I was under the impression that as long as you are using the proper PPE your good to go. Am I wrong?

Yes you are wrong. OSHA only permits very limited work on energized equipment. Not shutting down a school is not on the list. The most common permitted live work is trouble shooting.

1910.333(a)(1)"Deenergized parts." Live parts to which an employee may be exposed shall be deenergized before the employee works on or near them, unless the employer can demonstrate that deenergizing introduces additional or increased hazards or is infeasible due to equipment design or operational limitations. Live parts that operate at less than 50 volts to ground need not be deenergized if there will be no increased exposure to electrical burns or to explosion due to electric arcs.

 

[480sparky]

Why did he not cite you for working hot? Pulling power in a school panel is not work that is permitted to be done when the gear is hot

Beats me. And I don't try to understand the workings of an OSHA inspectors mind.

This is the same inspector that asked where the wire nuts were in our device box make-ups during rough. I replied, "They're in there, we just push all the make-ups to the back. But they have wire nuts on them. Trust me."

So she led me over to a switch box and pulled one of the pigtails out. "This wire must have a wire nut on it." I responed, as I pulled out the make-up, "It does, see, here they are right back here."

"No, you don't understand," she replied. "This wire here must have a wire nut on it."

"And it does," I explained, "Right here is a tan twister, see?"

That wasn't what she wanted. She wanted a wire nut on the end of the wire that the switch will eventually go on to. I asked why.

She said, "You never know where the other end of that wire is. If it becomes energized, someone could reach in, touch the bare end of that wire and get shocked. So the end of every wire on a job site, if it's not terminated where it's going to be, needs to have a wire nut on it."

I explained that the switchgear hasn't even been energized yet, and none of the homeruns have even been landed yet, and none of the breakers had even been installed in the panel yet, and the electrical room is locked, and only the GC and I had the keys to it, so it would take an act of Congress and a visit by the Pope and intervention by God for that wire to 'accidently' become energized. It made no difference to her. Wire nut 'em was the directive.

So I have a cubby a bag of yellow wire nuts and had him walk the entire job sticking the nuts on the ends of all the pigtails.

Two months later, the same inspector came 'round again, and looked at a pallet of wire we had sitting there, with a wire nut on each spool. She asked why I did that. I responded, "Well, I don't know where the other end of that wire is, so it may become energized, so we put a wire nut on it."



She was not amused. Must not have had a sense of humor.