Typical Maintenance Sparky - PIC

Lectrician

Lectrician

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Ripping out some wiring today in preperation of an office refit. The offices are part of a large factory which had a few maintenance sparks until the site was sold and taken over.

I guess one of the maintenance staff added an FCU for a heater........

Double socket at dado height, 10mm hole drilled through the noggin in the stud wall, and singles dropped inside stud to the new dry lining box......

1286471549.jpg


1286471550.jpg


1286471551.jpg


1286471552.jpg
 
I know I have had comment and I expect every tradesman has had something similar. "Your an electrician aren't you fix it."

Is seems many bosses can't understand that electricians have their specialist field and can't always move across. I am sure many house electricians would be stumped given a PLC to program and same in reverse if an industrial electrician was asked even the simplest question like am I allowed to drill a hole here in a wooden beam.

We assume all electricians have been to college and learn a little about all branches of the trade but give it 30 years and how much can one remember about the bits you don't do every day?

So hands up how many will go to boss and say "I missed that day in college don't know how to do that." Very few I think! Most of us will worry about telling any boss our skills are anything but A1.

We are told as electricians we can in a health and safety matter veto the orders of the managing director. Yes and we are really going to do that! Most need to keep the job and reversing the orders of a managing director does not help in keeping jobs. We live in a real world.

I have seen a lot worse than that where an instrument technician was told to fit sockets. He had no idea how many amps when through what cable.

However I have also seen the guys who seemed to have no problem in crossing between installation and maintenance and also worked with PLC's complete with SCADA control so to say maintenance guys should not work with installation or vice versa is flawed.

So should there be different exams? Should we have licences? At the moment there is no qualification which defines most of the trades and from the chippy to electrician with exception of welders most of us have only our past work to show how good we are.
 
ericmark said:
I know I have had comment and I expect every tradesman has had something similar. "Your an electrician aren't you fix it."

Is seems many bosses can't understand that electricians have their specialist field and can't always move across. I am sure many house electricians would be stumped given a PLC to program and same in reverse if an industrial electrician was asked even the simplest question like am I allowed to drill a hole here in a wooden beam.

We assume all electricians have been to college and learn a little about all branches of the trade but give it 30 years and how much can one remember about the bits you don't do every day?

So hands up how many will go to boss and say "I missed that day in college don't know how to do that." Very few I think! Most of us will worry about telling any boss our skills are anything but A1.

We are told as electricians we can in a health and safety matter veto the orders of the managing director. Yes and we are really going to do that! Most need to keep the job and reversing the orders of a managing director does not help in keeping jobs. We live in a real world.

I have seen a lot worse than that where an instrument technician was told to fit sockets. He had no idea how many amps when through what cable.

However I have also seen the guys who seemed to have no problem in crossing between installation and maintenance and also worked with PLC's complete with SCADA control so to say maintenance guys should not work with installation or vice versa is flawed.

So should there be different exams? Should we have licences? At the moment there is no qualification which defines most of the trades and from the chippy to electrician with exception of welders most of us have only our past work to show how good we are.
Click to expand...

Perhaps three seperate courses, domestic commercial and industrial should be brought in?

Also a card, a JIB card? Which along with the above qualification, AND a set number of hours experience in that field, entitles you to work on that type of installation.
 
Me too :P but I do know my limits
I also work a lot with PLCs and SCADA systems.

I'm shocked with the amount of [Sparks] that think that conduit singles do not need to be installed in conduit/trunking/ducting - have had fun and games in the past with them.
 
I also think you should have a certain number of hours before you could get this 'card', like the gassafe scheme, possibly 1500 hours or something :?:
 
Further to this.

Still working on the same site, still stripping out some redundant bits of the installation.

I took down some galv conduit which passed through a wall into a galv adaptable box. It was an abvious late addition.

Anyone spot the bleeding obvious?

One side of the wall
1286558313.jpg


Other side of the wall
1286558312.jpg
 

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