Keep your employees and business premises safe with an electrical inspection checklist.
Lumiform enables you to conduct digital inspections via app easier than ever before.
Get a kickstart with one of our +12000 ready-made and free checklists
Electricity is necessary to run a modern workplace, but it’s also hazardous. In 2019 the U.S. Fire Administration estimated that electrical malfunctions were responsible for over 2000 office and store fires, causing over $81.000.000 in direct property damage. Not to mention over 76.000 workers were disabled and injured due to electrical shocks and burns, along with many deaths.
An electrical inspection checklist is an important tool to determine if on-site conditions meet electrical safety regulations and your employees are complying. Electrical equipment should always be subjected to quality and safety testing before it is put into service. Inadequate testing and inadequate training of the workforce can lead to serious injuries and deaths from electricity. An electrical inspection checklist is designed to help inspectors keep track of the many aspects of an electrical installation that need to be reviewed, verified, inspected, determined, or otherwise investigated for compliance.
1. Why you need electrical safety checklists
2. How electrical safety checklists prevent accidents
3. The penalties for electrical safety violations
4. A mobile app for electrical safety checklists
Many people have become so accustomed to electrical power that they no longer treat it with the respect it deserves. Unfortunately, once they’re jolted out of their complacency, it might already be too late.
Take this case reported by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The tragedy could have been prevented if they’d had a proper safety program. An electrical inspection checklist would have helped them cover all the potential risks.
An employee plugged in a toaster and received an electric shock. He screamed, and coworkers rushed in to find him convulsing on the wet floor. One tried to help him, only to be shocked as well. The assistant manager went to the electrical panel but didn’t know which circuit breaker to cut the power to that circuit. Emergency medical services were called, and the assistant manager decided to cut the power to all circuits. By this time, the employee had been exposed to the current for three to eight minutes.
To make matters worse, nobody knew how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Someone was called in from a neighboring property, but when emergency services finally arrived there was nothing they could do. The 18-year-old young man was declared dead on arrival at the local hospital.
Many unsafe conditions came together to create this accident:
Safety standards say that CPR should be started four minutes or less after an electric shock and Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) administered in eight minutes or less. An electrical inspection checklist can help you maintain standards and prevent safety violations. You can’t afford a casual approach to electricity.
An electrical shock as low as 50 milliamperes (mA) can cause serious injury or death. Amperage measures how much electricity is passing through a circuit, while voltage measures its intensity. The voltage isn’t as dangerous as the amperage. A taser emits 50,000 volts, but its amperage is between 2.1 and 3.6 mA, so it’s normally safe.
This is why it’s so vitally important to cut the current as soon as someone starts getting shocked. The longer the current passes through their body, the higher the amperage they will be exposed to. People have been killed from exposure to a current as low as 50 volts. If a person receives more than 5 mA, they might not be able to let go of the electrical equipment – and this might apply to anyone who touches them as well.
An electric shock can cause a lot of damage to the human body, from relatively minor issues such as:
To severe issues such as:
An electrical inspection checklist is an important tool to help maintain proper health and safety at the workplace. It can protect your workplace by helping you maintain proper safety procedures such as:
You can also train your staff by using electrical safety checklists. They can help you teach good electrical safety habits such as:
In addition to the risk of death and massive property damage, significant monetary penalties may be imposed. In the U.S. the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) can assess the following penalties (as of 2020):
If you do get in trouble, the regular use of an OSHA electrical safety checklist can help. If you can show a good faith attempt to comply with safety standards, OSHA may knock as much as 25% off your penalties. For this, you would need a written health and safety system that covers the following:
Every electrical inspection checklist can be a lifesaver. Every employer is responsible for electrical safety in his company. Not only does it affect the safety of your employees and customers, but operational efficiency is also affected by poor electrical safety and maintenance practices - not to mention the risk for breakdowns and fires.
With the help of a powerful mobile app like Lumiform, you can digitize your inspection. The features of a digitized tool give you numerous benefits that streamline your processes for audits, inspections, and maintenance:
You have questions or would like to schedule a personal demo? We are happy to help you!