Our “fault of the week” posts are published to show the sort of dangerous electrical faults that our Veriserv engineers are finding every day of the week whilst carrying out routine electrical inspection & testing at our customer’s premises. Exposed electrical supply and burnt out wiring & control gear was found within this lamp post.

We hope that in posting examples we will raise more awareness and hopefully this will lead to fewer electric shocks and electrical fires

In this example the dark nights just got darker for this public entertainments area in the Black Country. Exposed electrical supply and burnt out wiring & control gear was found within this lamp post during the planned electrical inspection by Veriserv. On closer inspection though, there was considerable damage within the lamp post as the incoming supply cable was still found to be live. Immediate action is called for when a defect like this is identified, particularly so when the equipment is situated in a publicly accessible area.

In this instance the Veriserv engineer isolated the lamp post at the supply origin, notified the site contact and investigated other lamp posts to identify if the defect has occurred elsewhere.

It’s a legal requirement for any property owner to provide a safe place for persons within a public accessible area. To satisfy this requirement suitable and proper inspection and maintenance must be carried out at regular intervals. Veriserv are specialists in the areas of Electrical Inspection & Testing and Fire Alarm Testing & Maintenance.

Electric shocks are generally more dangerous as the voltage increases however in the UK all mains voltages supplying your home or company premises are sufficient to kill or inflict a serious injury.An electric shock can cause;

• • the heart to stop or beating properly
  • the person to stop breathing properly
  • muscle spasms
  • electrical burns
  • an electrical fire

More information can be found by visiting the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) website.

There are electrical standards and approved codes of practice, the details of which can again be found on the HSE website.

How safe is your property? Are you sure work has been done correctly, and do you have your electrics tested regularly? Just a few loose cable connections could of meant serious danger for this person.

The attached photo shows burning and heat damage forming within a consumer unit. This fault was caused by a loose or poor cable connection and luckily was spotted by a Veriserv engineer, and was able to be repaired.

The power from the consumer unit was still live and working, so may not have seemed a problem for the customer, but you can clearly see the potential fire risk that can increase within a property without inspections. This is a problem that could have escalated extremely quickly, and would have been more than just an inconvenience, it could have been life threatening.

During periodic inspections, Veriserv engineers test and physically check for loose cable connections, as well as any other technical faults, which as you can see is a valuable service.

Our mission is to provide every single customer with an outstanding service that is fit for purpose and delivered by experts to reduce risk. As you can see from our other faults of the week, regular visits from a professional can cut down the risk of electrical faults, fire and disrupted security, to you and your workplace.

So if you know you are due a service, or have some concerns about your premises, please call 01543 225306, or fill out one of our contact forms to arrange a free assessment of your premises, with one of our fully trained engineers.

AC adapters & chargers are commonplace in every workplace nowadays, whether used for mobile phones or supplying certain IT equipment. So Faulty AC Adapters are beginning to become a problem.

This week, we have again identified a safety issue that can occur with some of these appliances. Most of these items are constructed from two halves of a molded casing which are glued & sometimes screwed together. Occasionally however this fixing can fail leading to the casing coming apart and causing a faulty AC adapters exposing live terminals at 230V potential.

Of the three photographs, the unit laid out in two pieces failed the first time the item was removed from the wall socket. This charger was actually a replacement for another unit that had failed in the same way!

Veriserv would recommend caution for any chargers or AC adapters used in the workplace that are not an original equipment manufacturer part, as they could be potentially harmful. We would advise staying with the manufacturers parts where possible, and taking care of your appliances.

Our mission is to provide every single customer with an outstanding service that is fit for purpose and delivered by experts to reduce risk. As you can see from our other faults of the week, regular visits from a professional can cut down the risk of electrical faults, fire and disrupted security, to you and your workplace.

So if you know you are due a service, or have some concerns about your premises, please call 01543 225306, or fill out one of our contact forms to arrange a free assessment of your premises, with one of our fully trained engineers.

You may have heard the old adage of “if it works then there’s no need to fix it” but when an item of portable electrical equipment becomes damaged it should be switched off, disconnected from the supply and taken out of service. Unfortunately, in this instance this damaged socket extension lead was found by a Veriserv engineer to be still in use despite its obvious dangerous condition.

This piece of equipment obviously poses a number of hazards such as electrical shock and the risk of causing a fire. This would pose a high risk to any company and its employees.

All users of portable electrical equipment in the work place should undertake ‘User Checks’ however in this case it seems this piece of equipment has gone unnoticed. Ideally, in this situation as soon as the damage occurred the piece of equipment should have been switched off. It should not be acceptable for a significant defect of this nature to go unnoticed, therefore the IET recommend that formal visual inspections are undertaken periodically by a competent person to identify these hazardous items.

A Veriserv engineer would isolate the equipment at time of the inspection and advise the client of his findings, and assist where possible to get equipment that was connected to the extension lead back on.

Our mission is to provide every single customer with an outstanding service that is fit for purpose and delivered by experts to reduce risk. As you can see from our other faults of the week, regular visits from a professional can cut down the risk of electrical faults, fire and disrupted security, to you and your workplace.

So if you know you are due a service, or have some concerns about your premises, please call 01543 225306, or fill out one of our contact forms to arrange a free assessment of your premises, with one of our fully trained engineers.

Information for Reference

IET- Institution for Engineering Technology

Code of Practice for In-service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment Chapter 15.8

Regulations

Provision & Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 Regulation 5

The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, Regulation 4(1)