Working as standard sparky, there is no excuse for working live.  Everything should be done dead.

The DNO's (the guys who maintain the electricity supplies in the streets) work live when they need to, but they have very stringent rules in regarding this (two people at all times, gauntlets, flameproof matts, insulating matts, and plenty of training).  Even then, they do not make any connections under load - everything is done with circuits open (the fuse removed from customers cut out etc).

There is a small area where working live is practiced as a normal sparky.  In a commercial or industrial installation where you need to work inside a distribution board to add a new circuit (for example).  There would live busbars, tightning of the MCB screw onto a live busbar etc.  This is done everyday, but really should not be.

What are your reasons for the question?

The_Trician wrote on Dec 12^th, 2009, 12:34am:


FFS, TT.  



Rapid Rab - it's Regulation 14 of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1989/Uksi_19890635_en_1.htm

You should have to hand a copy of HSR25 - the Memorandum of Guidance on these regulations:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/PUBNS/books/hsr25.htm

And HSG85 is a useful reference to have.

all work should be done dead but most sparks will do some live working.

very rarely do you see guys isolate the full consumer unit if they are just adding an extra cct into existing cu

you look at the situation and do your own risk assesment and if it goes wrong you have nobody else to blame.

doesnt matter how much you legislate or what regulations you put in once guys are out on site (smaller sites) you cant control what they are doing