Toolbox Talk why do electricans do

===

[00:00:00] Ben: To test or not to test? That would be a good question. The amount of testing you do when you are working as an electrician is, it's pretty much crazy sometimes, but to be fair is needed. , toolbox talks for electricians, loading electricians with the tools and the skills they need to reduce stress, gain back time, and earn more.

[00:00:27] Hey there, Ben Polter, your host back again, and today's podcast is gonna be about testing and working. Working as an electrician. There's not really a day that goes by where you don't do some form of testing, but do you ever skip that part? Think it'll be okay sometimes because I'm good at my job. Why do I need to test all the time?

[00:00:52] I haven't had a fire yet. Nothing's burnt down. Electricity can kill so we don't want to use a 5 million pound insurance, even though we've got it. Well, in this podcast. I'll tell you all the repercussions of skipping testing along with an explanation on why electricians do it so much, and best of all, how testing can make you as much money as it saves you in the long run. . Now testing for many electricians is sort of the boring part.

[00:01:23] I know. It is. For me, it gets , a bit of a bane sometimes. I got a job once where I was basically testing week in and week out. Yeah. I didn't last long sort of thing. I got two bored to do that. I like being the hands-on kind of guy where I actually do the insulation and you reap the benefits of seeing everything work.

[00:01:40] At the end, I get more of a. Satisfaction out of that rather than just testing it, going, yeah, that's fault we, yeah, that's passing. It's a bit boring for me. When installing sort of 20 down lights in a kitchen, it's completely transforming the look of that kitchen and making it look a lot better. It's a lot more satisfying than just getting, , an homes reading on meter. But then again, turning it all on and seeing it all working, that's a functional test itself, making sure it all works.

[00:02:10] However, just because something works, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's safe and it'll work for long. So when installing a. Anywhere the testing is what to confirm that it's done to a high standard and that you've done a good job. So first things first, with one of the main tests that you do all the time is your earth fault loop reading, known as the earth fault loop impedance test.

[00:02:37] This will give you a reading in OMS testing the circuit to make sure that the whole loop, the live, the neutral. Is in working order. Before you actually start to do any sort of work inside a property or on any installation, maybe the last thing you want is to be tested at the end of the job and find that you can't get , a good reading enough to pass your test on your test certificate because the fault was already there.

[00:03:02] So the first thing you wanna do when you get to. Is do a loop reading. Just test that you can get a decent reading at the beginning of the job. So then at the end of the job you get a good reading too, or even a better reading. It's happened to me before where the earth in the fuse board was sort of left out and I dunno why it'd left out, but maybe a previous electrician had left it out for maybe testing or the, they took it out for some reason.

[00:03:26] Maybe it was tripping the fuse and they thought the only way to solve this is to pull the earth out. Yeah, it'll work. But man, this, , not really a good thing to do. But that earth had been out for a little while and probably one of the reasons why the previous electrician didn't get called back. So assuming you've got a good zedi reading, that's the term they use for the air fault loop impedance test.

[00:03:48] It's like shortened down to zedi. Then you get cracking on and start your work. and if the reading is too high, I'd spend maybe five minutes looking in maybe common places. Is the earth disconnected? Have they even connected the earth inside? Either the fitting or maybe in the socket or the lights, something like that.

[00:04:04] A lot of the time, some people do, they just put 'em in maybe a chalk block or if it's, if it's down lights, then they haven't carried on the feed because maybe the L E D lighting is a class two fit and they didn't need an earth, so they didn't connect it to start with. But you should just, you should connect the earth.

[00:04:21] If it's like a daisy chain anyway, so it protects the cable, not just the bleeding light fitting, but it does depend on how high or the extent of how bad that reading is that maybe let the customer know that there's a fault there and it will be needed to be needed to be fixed and extra costs may get incurred in the job.

[00:04:41] And then wise, you've got your. Earth a neutral, all connected to maybe that circuit. Flick your little tester over to the R C d tripping and just test the r c D to make sure that that's not faulty before you start, because one that will knock the correct circuit off what you're gonna be working on, and that it'll also prove to your the circuit that you need to lock off back at the fuse board.

[00:05:04] So then you've installed your new circuit. Let's say that it is 20 down lights inside a kitchen. The first test you do is insulation resistance, known as a mega, sometimes . So a lot of people say you mega the circuit and a normal voltage of two 40 volts. Then you test it at 500 volts, double the nominal voltage.

[00:05:24] And at this point, you don't want to have any of the lights connected. You're only testing the wiring plus testing, maybe an L e D light fitting at 500 volts. It'll damage the new lights that you're putting in, so you don't want to do it at 500 volts with the lights in, maybe if you put 'em on a plug. Or lot of times they have these chop blocks.

[00:05:44] Where you can wire 'em into. And the plugs that the new l e D fit ins, they come where you can plug 'em in and plug 'em out, so they're easily replaceable. So maybe if you've got all your plugs on hanging out, ready to be tested and the insulation resistance will make sure that your wiring and you've put in it isn't damaged anywhere or the cable's good.

[00:06:02] Cause a lot of times these days I see that some of the cables. Basically rubbish. They're made a little bit cheaper. Everything's getting cheaper, and it's obviously less the materials are getting made with well just crap and materials really, they're not as good. Or they'll also make sure that any of the trades that have not gone through your cables and damaged your cables, and I'm not gonna name any plasters here, but yeah, you do it all the time, lads.

[00:06:28] So you do your insulation resistance and you measure it. And it's completely clear. Spot on. You've done a good job. Then after that, you wanna start with a continuity test, which is testing live and neutral, live and earth and neutral and earth. And this will be tested without the circuit into the board at the fuse board end, because don't connect the live.

[00:06:51] No, sorry. Don't connect the earth and the neutral into the board because the neutral and the earth, if it's a PME system, it may be common, so you will get a reading, so leave them disconnected from the board. And this is where them little wago come in handy cuz you can easily connect your maybe live and your neutral or you're live in your earth at the end of line, at your last light fit in where there's one cable so you can test the whole circuit all the way back to the board.

[00:07:18] I think them wa GOs are a great invention for that. I keep wao in my pocket all the time, so they're come in handy for a lot of things. And then the results you get from that continuity testing will be in o. And it'll give you a reading. And in the onsite guide there's a table that tells you the acceptable OMS readings on cable sizes and lamps.

[00:07:38] Over time, you'll get to know which is acceptable, so you won't have to go back to that book every five minutes to check. Is this all right? , is this a pass or is it a fail? But then you've checked all your readings and brilliant, your wiring is spot on. Of course it is. Your electrician don't make mistakes, so then it's time for the best test of them all actually turning it on and selecting the correct fuse for the cables you've put in and getting all your hard work that you've put into action, working with a functional test.

[00:08:10] So that's it. You're done. Pat your bag up. Get paid. Get outta there. Now that would, what would you do if you were a goddamn cowboy? You pack your tools away and get out there because if you assume that you've finished, you've done a dusted. But if you've gone that far, you might as well complete more tests.

[00:08:29] Just obviously for your certificate. Certificate. You've gotta get these results. You've gotta write them down to maybe give them a part B or to give them a certificate for the installation that you've done. So go back and do your earth fault loop impedance. Test your live testing. And then also wise, it's connected.

[00:08:45] Once again, you've got a check like that, R C D trips and trips within the permitted times. Because you're gonna need all these readings for your paperwork anyway. So let's say you are one of these guys. It doesn't bother testing. I don't care how good you are at your job, it only takes one mistake for everything to go wrong.

[00:09:04] Uh, just the other day I was second fixing a house. We were over 20 sockets and all the results. Firstly, the first dead results, I turned out spot on. But then I went round after and plugged in my little like socket tester that tells you the one with the three lights on. That tells you whether you've got a live or neutral fault or any, any sort of fault.

[00:09:25] It's a great little tester. Obviously, you've gotta check these out with sockets. You've gotta plug them in to make sure you have got a live neutral on an earth. But one of these sockets, it come up with a live and neutral, the wrong way round. I thought, oh my God, what have I done there? Pulled the socket off and had a look what I had.

[00:09:42] I'd put 'em in the wrong terminations of the socket. I know exactly what happened. I got a phone call. Why as I was doing that socket was I was second fix and I answered the phone call, sat there with a loud speaker. My mind was in a different place and I haven't got a clue why I'd done a the 19 spot on, but no one of them, I got around the wrong way, but it proved upon the testing.

[00:10:03] And although it's probably not a big deal for many appliances, but if some customer plugged their hoovering and it was gonna blow rather than suck, that's gonna be a big problem. That guy obviously wants a Hoover to suck rather than pull, uh, blow even. And it is these simple little mistakes that can leave the customer thinking that you rubbish at your job and it'll stop them calling you back in the future.

[00:10:27] Or also even recommending you. Cuz everyone remembers the faults that you do. If they have to call you back and say, oh yeah, ma Hoover was blowing, then that's gonna be the story. Like back, oh yeah, this the electrician. He did it wrong. Not about, Hey, the electrician did a great job and everything works spot on and it's safe.

[00:10:44] It'll be about the fault that you did. And he'll tell all the friends about. So leave the job with full confidence that you've done a good job and completed it to the highest standard that you can possibly complete it to. All the testings that electricians do is to make sure that the install is correct.

[00:11:02] Now, how many times have you been to a customer's house where another electrician's been there and done some work? Only to find that it's a simple fix. If the guy did some testing, it would've found out that it's a loose cable or something that. 10 minutes of testing would've picked up on and it would saved him going back or getting a bad reputation.

[00:11:22] The only reason that I want to return to a customer's house is to do more work. So carrying out these tests, it will save your time and money in the long run. I've been to many jobs before where you've discovered some false with your testing on maybe other circuits that I wasn't working on at the time, but reported them to the customer and asked if you'd like to have a quote to get them false fixed.

[00:11:45] So obviously that was more work. Of more money and customers who've watched me test before and they appreciate that you're doing such a thorough job with your work and it gets them talking to their friends as well was they said, oh, this electrician come along. He had this tester, he was doing this. He was doing that to make sure everything was right.

[00:12:03] They recommend you to you, their friends, they tell them as they tell their friends and their family a story about how thorough you were and how good electrician you are, and that again, results in more. More work and you don't get called up by customers saying, oh yes, um, excuse me, that job you did, the light is flickering only to find that you've left a loose connection.

[00:12:24] You thought, damn, I didn't tighten it up. Right. Or sometimes when you've got small wives, you might tighten it up too much. and that terminal, it snaps. It snaps a cable up inside it. Well, a continuity test would show you that, that you've got a high reading and that cable snaps you need to re terminate it, and you could do that wise on site.

[00:12:43] So it'll stop you getting called back, which again, more, more time and more money you'll have in your business. So this goes to show that. Although testing this boring job, it's worth taking a little bit of extra time to do it and do it right. And for more ways to get more work and more money, check out the podcast how these simple, easy steps will fill your diary with high paying customers or year round, and that will help your business grow even better.

[00:13:15] And I'll leave a link in the description of this podcast. To the other podcast so you can check it out right away. Thanks for listening, and until next time, I'll see you again.

[00:13:26] Get inside the toolbox, talks for electricians group, and post your experience of what we've talked about today. I'll leave a link to the group in the show notes below. Until next time, we'll see you again.