noarcflash

How many of you guys are getting into this arc flash training, and no working on hot panels or any live work at all.???

70E training, with the moon suit.

Bbsound

Working primarily is healthcare facilities we often do not have the luxery of shutting down equipment. We do use blankets, double triangle tools, 40 cal arc suits, etc when we do work hot.
We do however do small shutdowns usually early in the morning whenever possible.

nolabama

I wear the bulwark 8.7 shirts and the wrangler FR pants 23.7 ATPV rating. I have moon suit and am required by rule to not do hot work. I do hot work. I have not had arc flash training. I have a copy of NFPA 70E. I try to read up on it when I have spare time.

__________________
“Dammit, Smithers, this isn’t rocket science, it’s brain surgery!”

Big John

What's more disruptive: A planned shutdown or an unplanned outage?

More than once I've seen an accident during hotwork shut down a critical power panel, and in once case it dumped the main and took out an entire pharmaceutical plant. The results were far worse than if someone had figured out how to plan the outage.

I'm not throwing stones; I've also done hot work because an "outage couldn't be tolerated". But I think we should at least be honest and admit that it's playing Russian roulette.

-John

noarcflash

I guess that depends on the panel. I do alot of 208y work, light manufacturing / commerical. No heavy switch gear. The 150-200amp sub panels are nothing more than a glorified residential panel.

the 600amp main services are where I start to get concerned about PPE. In fact, I have serious hesitations about opening them up hot. I am rethinking about how I work on these big service entrances, or anything bigger than a 40/40 with serious fault current.

MDShunk

I will do hot work. I have all the tools and PPE to do hot work. I've attended several classes on arc flash calculations (each instructor has a different idea). Still, I prefer not to do hot work if there's another way. If you're troubleshooting, especially in NFPA 79 type panels, it's hard to get around it. I'll happily reschedule an after hours shutdown, even if it means working at night or on the weekend, if I can do the work properly while the work is deenergized.

__________________
One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.

garfield

Do you charge more for after hours work?

MDShunk

Of course. Everyone does. Everyone should, at least. Shutdown work necessarily involves a lot of planning, so it's usually being done at a set price for the "job", so folks don't necessarily know they're paying a bit more.

The trick with taking an outage it to not offer options. Tell them plainly that they'll need to take an outage to do the work, and ask only if Friday night or Saturday night would be best. Something along those lines. Not, "do you want me to turn off your power" or not.

__________________
One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.

frenchelectrican

I do after hours when they give me the time window to shut the system down then I will go in do some manteance work as need to. But I do work on hot from time to time but I will try to advoid it much as possible.

Best time genrally useally on the weekend when the company is pretty much down on the weekend and there are few case on the hoildays as well.

Merci,
Marc

__________________
Bleu est beau.

noarcflash

how much time do you spend with the poco to make arrangements to shut down on a friday night ?

and will the poco stick around, or you have to wait until they come back ?

Zog

Nonesense, we do plenty of hospital work and always during a shutdown. Usually at night on the weekends after the last surgery at night and back up before the first one in the morning.

Zog

Getting into it? Been doing it this way for years, 70E has been around since 1979.

If your training left you with a "moon suit" as your only option you had poor training.

MDShunk

That's my biggest gripe with the 70E training that's out there. Much of it is incomplete, some of it is plainly poor, and it's really hard to figure out who's giving you the real scoop. I ended up just taking several until I think I'm now able to decode what I'm really supposed to do. I've also come to the conclusion that if you have 10 guys calculate incident energy, you'll get about 6 different conclusions. Some based on whether they used the IEEE method or the 70E method, but most of the differences are based on how much actual effort they put into getting solid information to perform the calc from.

/rant.

__________________
One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.

user4818

When you say you will do hot work, what is your level of acceptable danger? Will you work near the bus bars in high amperage switch gear or set a bucket, both with the potential to incinerate you? Or are we talking entering a few circuits into a 120/208 panel?

MDShunk

Yes, and yes. But the potential to incinerate thing is mitigated by PPE. The potential to cave my chest in, burn me mildly, or knock me down worries me more. The potential to cause major property damage worries me most.

__________________
One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.

MDShunk

An outage seldom means the PoCo is involved. It's often as simple as locking off a breaker in the MDP to make a panel, MCC lineup, or other equipment dead. In my area, the bigger customers have an air switch you can throw yourself anyhow -or- they own the padmounts so you can just pull the elbows. If it's direct metered, few meters are locked in my area, and the PoCo's have no problem with a recognized electrician cutting the seal and pulling the meter, as long as you give them a call to tell them that you did it.

__________________
One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.

Zog

Yep, a lot of the training out there is crap, guys having no idea what they are talking about or more importantly how to apply the requirements to the audiences needs.

user4818

Yes, and for that reason alone, hot work makes no sense to me. The potential to fatally damage critical parts of the electrical system seems to outweigh any benefit to working live.

MDShunk

I remember manchestersparky saying one time that he always made his guys sweep the top of ordinary panelboards before removing the cover for debris that could potentially fall, causing damage. Even the seemingly innocuous task of removing a cover can cause a surprise. I can't tell you how many times I've taken off a cover and found the cover was the only thing holding a few breakers barely clipped in. I removed a cover screw one time that must have been hard pressed against the feeder conductor insulation, and all it took was a few turns out for it to finally wear through to the conductor metal and make a little spark show.

__________________
One reason not to give DIY advice:
Catch a man a fish and you can sell it to him.
Teach a man to fish and you’ve ruined a good business opportunity.

Wirenuting

Our 70E training was easy.
Lock & tag it
No hot work
Here is your size 3XXX 8 cal coveralls/lid/shield & tools.
BTW,, you need to quickly complete jobs. ;-)
Sign here__________

Training completed before 9am coffee break.

Never a mention of how,what or why & no arc flash studies, not even a generic sticker.

Oh ya, last few times I asked for after hour shut down,, boss said "No".

__________________
Teacher, my brain is full... Can I go home now?