test and tag OHS

[SGG]

Hi Everyone
I need help and advice. The rules on testing and tagging electrical equipment (in NSW) changed a couple of years ago. It only has to be done on portable equipment used in construction or in a hostile operating environment. The examples given by workcover are where mechanical damage could occur or equipment subject to damage by moisture, heat, vibration, corrosive substances or dust. You would think a science lab qualifies and DET and the CSO obviously concur because they are doing it. My higher ups want to do an inspection because they feel we don't qualify. The worst is that I rang local workcover and they think that if the chances are unlikely (looking at previous repairs and damage reports) then we don't fall into this category but we have to do Risk Assessments on every piece of electrical equipment to make sure! The workcover bloke said that the OHS committee was supposed to do this but I can see where this is heading - I'll end up doing it!
How do I convince my higher ups that we need to test and tag? Has anyone else got this situation? I'm desperate!
Regards
Sue G

[Slartibartfast]

In NSW DET schools electrical testing/tagging of ALL onsite electrical equipment of both single and multi phase started 4 years ago and was originally done annually. Even personal equipment owned by staff MUST be tested if used on DET property. "It only has to be done on portable equipment used in construction or in a hostile operating environment" was how it used to be for schools before the new regulations came into effect.

The testing is contracted out to private industry and was originally done by Transfield Pty Ltd but it is now Lecsafe and they in turn sub contract out to smaller companies when needed. The electrical tags now state the year when the item was tested, when the next test is due, the person who conducted the testing, test status, etc. The variety of equipment is enormous as is the age.

If unsure of you schools compliance, contact Workcover NSW (again) and ask for the current legislation or your schools governing body e.g. Catholic Education etc. You could easily get the schools electrician to have a look when he's next in for another job onsite. We aren't trained in this critical area and the responsability needs to be taken elsewhere.

Has your school had any testing/tagging done at all? I'm sure it's not only us that must comply with the State Government regulations for educational institutions but I'll find out this morning.

P.S. Schools are classed as 'hostile operating environments' believe it or not!!!!

[JudyM]

Hi Sue,

I was one of the lucky (?) ones at my school to do the testing & tagging course 3 years ago. The course was through TAFE & is called Safety Checking of Electrical Appliances (9989A).

We tag & test everything yearly & having a few staff that have done the course means we can share it around. I have heard that some companies charge $5 per item so it might be worthwhile contacting TAFE

Good luck
Judy

[Slartibartfast]

The rate set by the DET is $0.28 per item. Bear in mind most schools have literally thousands of items to be tested so it adds up.

Blimey $5.00 per item, have they been to the Petrol Company school of pricing to achieve such a profound figure?! What costs that? Not the tag nor the electricity for the testing equipment that's for sure!

Maybe they use an expensive celebrity like Jennifer Hawkins to do the testing for them!

Phooaaarr! I'd pay $5 bucks for her to visit my school anyday!

Judy, on a serious note, after you obtained the qualifications to test, your school, did they purchase the testing unit (start at $3,500) or is it leased? We looked at getting the GA to do it but it was costed out by the DET. It is much simpler for them as they just sign a fat cheque for all DET schools to have the work carried out for them.

[Sassi]

Hi all,

Excuse me for being a bit slow, but I find it hard to follow this conversation, read it several times but cannot get my head around it (yes, I am blonde). At the start of the year I was under the impression that we had to get all electrical apparatus tested yearly. I spoke to the maintenance people at our school to organize this for science, but they told me you no longer need to get anything tested? I still felt unsure and after reading this, I feel even more unsure... So could someone please let me know, should electrical stuff get tested and can you give me a good argument to present to the maintenence dudes to convince them to do it, if ti is indeed required? Appreciate any help you may be able to give

Sanscha

[Slartibartfast]

If you are an educational institution in NSW, then the tester with his testing equipment needs to visit your school annually. Equipment falls into 2 catagories and will either need to tested every 12 months or every 5 years depending on it's age, usage, environment, location, power draw etc. Whether this is done by a person on location i.e. a member of staff with the schools testing equipment and tags or by a contractor is up to your schools governing body.

Every new tag will have when the item needs to be tested again printed apon it, but if you've never had any equipment tested ever, then I'd be asking questions starting with your OH&S committee as to why!

The risk of serious electrical injury is pretty big in a school. I was thrown across my printroom years ago when a soldering iron I was using shorted and my hand clamped around it. Single phase 240 volt is far more dangerous to your heart than 3 phase and I've copped both bigtime!

I may blink a lot more than I used to, black out for hours on end and my hair will never be anything other than dead straight and upright but it's all good and I learn't from the experience.

[Sassi]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Thanks for that Slartibartfast, I feel enlightened

[JudyM]

Slart (hope you don't mind me calling you that)

We had the testing machine even before any of us had done the course.
Apparently it cost around $600. It's only a small & fits into a briefcase with all the tags etc but it serves the purpose & we can take it anywhere. It usually takes 3 of us to do the tagging - 1 testing, 1 on the laptop and another writing the tags (usually a staff members offspring). All the tagging is done in the holidays.

It's such a mind numbing experience Jennifer Hawkins would probably charge $10 an item.

Judy

[Slartibartfast]

Mind numbing in the extreme I bet! I was with the guy doing the testing for science equipment and he was literally willing to talk about ANYTHING to keep his mind off the job at hand.

I once saw the testing equipment fail it's own test! They tested a new one out of the box with another older one they knew worked to demonstrate it's capability and the positive/negative had been wired incorrectly and had to be put out of action until fixed by the manufacturer in Singapore!

I love when things like that happen, it's so silly it really makes my day!

[estelle]

Hi,
I just finished a four day course for OH&S run by workcover. There was discussion by the teacher about tagging.I think it will be changed to not being done because they have had situations where straight after the tagging has been done, someone has had some incident thinking the equipment was safe because it had just been checked and tagged. The problem was, that the leads had been damaged within hours or days since the check.
I think the idea now is if it isn't tagged then staff (MIGHT) check for faults and damage before using.
I think changes are to save someones butt!!
Estelle
P.S. I told the instructor I still think the OH&S issues in school are a joke considering the non training of science assistants.
Part of the course is to read the actual law relating to training. I asked if the DET was exempt but he said they aren't. Funny about that, someone is missing something.

[SGG]

Hi everyone
What I said in my post IS the current legislation from Workcover. One of my bosses got a question and answer file off the workcover site. It used to be everything was tagged and DET still does this but the current wording ( and I phoned workcover to check) is that you have to fall into construction or a hostile environment. The bloke from workcover conceeded that we had moisture ,heat, corrosive chemicals etc present but then said could we prove that they had been getting into the equipment by showing repair and maintenance logs! If we can't then we technically don't fall into the hostile environment - so we have to do risk assessments on all the equipment to show how likely all this is. What I'm worried about is that we haven't had too much problem with equipment - ONLY because teachers and lab staff are vigilant - but it only takes a problem and then they'll be looking at the risk assessments etc etc. We have had everthing tagged up to two years ago when the legislation change by a bloke in Maintenance who did the course but this is the problem - the head of maintenance doesn't want his bloke to spend the time so he is using the changes to put it onto others - namely me! And it can cost between $4 - $7 per piece of equipment - my husband is Head teacher TAFE Electrical Eng and Trade and he just had it done. That's why I brought it up again and now I'm getting the run around. If I cn't pull some incidents of equipment failure due to Hostile conditions out of the hat (even other schools incidents) - I'm not going to get any test and tagging even though DET and Catholic Schools all do it because they don't want any possible liability. Does anyone know of any failures?
Regards
Sue G

[Slartibartfast]

Wouldn't it make the world go round better if Government Departments actually talked to one another about changes to legislation.

I contacted 9 senior schools, 4 primary and 2 TAFEs yesterday and our District office - none of which knew about any changes to what we've been working to over the last 4+ years. We all seem to be working to what we've been told and that is annual checks. Our school has contractors booked for the next 3 years!

I contacting head office in Bridge Street late yesterday as to what they believe is the situation and will post their answer as soon as I get it after they have met with Workcover NSW.

What a massive waste of our time and taxpayers money if we don't actually need to do it now.

[Labbie]

I had twodays off, Facs leave for husband. Have been reading all this, at home. It really is just a big waste of every ones time. Will we ever take things serious, when they do this to us.

[macca]

Sorry, I know this has been done before. Can anyone tell me what the actual procedure is for NSW, every 12 months????? or has it changed, as ours haven't been done in over 2 years, just want some info as back up.
Thanks everyone

[Loopy]

Hey Macca!
My boss got me to research this and the best I could find was a big loop hole that says everything needs to be test tagged but essentially it is up to you to show you have this under control ie it expresses no time limit. Regrettably I haven't got the actually quote on hand (miscellaneous filing system up the creek) but if you document when T & T was done and show that you have a system in place it seems that that adequate enough. If you think things should be tested frequently ie 3 monthly then do it, if you think every two years is adequate then do that. I'm sure if you try checking into Workcover they are where I got the information from.
Hope this helps,