Electical Contractor

Safety should be the best motivator It’s hard to resist telling morbid stories of occupational accidents to motivate individuals to take safety precautions. However, the ease with which foreign objects can enter the eyes should speak for itself.

When a Compliance Safety and Health Officer (CSHO) from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) visits an unprepared job site, the reactions can be amusing. Usually, the word travels throughout the site and employees scramble.

As much as 8.5 million miles of abandoned cable will, sooner or later, be removed. Who pays? How will it be done? What will go up in its place? Such questions emanate from new requirements in the 2002 National Electrical Code. Answers will come in time.

Frequent readers of ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR are more than likely aware of the existence of federal OSHA regulations and other contractual standards for safe work practices in construction.

A lost requirement of OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard When the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued the Hazard Communication Standard, our industry was overwhelmed. Mountains of paper were assembled to comply. Dangerous physical hazards seemed to take a back seat.

To be safe, take it step by step Controlling hazardous energy or lockout/tagout (LOTO) can be a complex subject for the electrical industry. Different regulations address it from all perspectives.

Thousands of accidents occur in the electrical construction industry each year. Accidents are defined as “an unplanned event that results in personal injury or property damage.” Their severity ranges from minor injury and minimal property damage to million-dollar losses and fatalities.

A couple of months ago we dealt with lightning and the fast transients that can be coupled onto the electrical distribution system of the utility or within a facility, and the use of TVSS (transient voltage surge suppressors) to minimize the potential damage from such.

What’s new in the lightning protection field? From a technical standpoint, not much, although the lightning rod disguised as a rooster on a barn has been replaced by more efficient transmitters.