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What are your thoughts on letting customers access a fuseboard?

I'm working for a company that rents out rooms by the hour for people to play musical instruments and they often trip the power. These are unmanned premises. I've been asked to place a fuseboard in the corridor with RCBOs for the socket power in the room (only).

Apart from all the alarm bells in my head, are there any guidelines/regulations on unleashing the untrained onto a DB in this situation?

Thanks
 
Unleashing the untrained onto a DB ? Not sure I'm following.

They are designed for operation by the end user. What do you do in domestic installations, advise the owner never to touch their board ?
 
Have a look at the HSE Electricity at Work safe working practices. Unqualified/untrained persons should not be allowed to 'work' on electrical systems. You could argue by resetting the breaker they are 'working' on the system. Bad idea in my opinion, better to find out why they are tripping and reconfigure the installation accordingly.
 
Have a look at the HSE Electricity at Work safe working practices. Unqualified/untrained persons should not be allowed to 'work' on electrical systems. You could argue by resetting the breaker they are 'working' on the system. Bad idea in my opinion, better to find out why they are tripping and reconfigure the installation accordingly.

Have to disagree with you there mate.
You can't expect the customer to be calling an electrician when a breaker trips. That's just plain silly..
 
Don't forget that "ordinary persons" are ranked below trained, Instructed, Handicapped and Children in the regs at BA1, Skilled being BA5. Personally I would not let them anywhere near such equipment and indeed in the commercial environments (rental offices) the clients are not allowed to reset a breaker. There is the problem that you first need to know why it disconnected and we have had people continually switching back on equipment causing problems and damaging equipment and/or MCB. Rabble management is important.
 
Don't forget that "ordinary persons" are ranked below trained, Instructed, Handicapped and Children in the regs at BA1, Skilled being BA5. Personally I would not let them anywhere near such equipment and indeed in the commercial environments (rental offices) the clients are not allowed to reset a breaker. There is the problem that you first need to know why it disconnected and we have had people continually switching back on equipment causing problems and damaging equipment and/or MCB. Rabble management is important.

Surely that is all down to the management of the building by the owner/operator in the form of operating procedures, risk assessments etc and not really the problem of the OP ?
 
Well it seems it is a parallel situation in that it is commercial and various uses made of it by divers people so the risk level is higher and in my view is apposite to the request for thoughts on such a situation.
 
If the people renting have PAT on their equipment, there should be no reason for the rcbo’s to trip, unless it’s over current, or a fault. In which case they shouldn’t be able to reset until fault rectified
 
There is lots of equipment on the market intended for use by ordinary persons.
Here’s a list of some:
Light switch, Socket-outlet, Consumer Unit, Cooker Switch, Lamp holder, Pull cord switches, Fused Connection Units.

To my mind, if you want to prohibit access by ordinary persons to one from the list, then you should prohibit access to all on the list.

P.S. we don’t use Handicapped any more.
 
It's not the DB that worries me, it's what they are re-energising. Faults are usually very minor problems involving bands with too much dodgy old kit, playing too loud. It's the worst case scenario we have to protect against.

I've never been in a commercial property where untrained persons have been able to get to the board for that very reason.
 
Have a look at the HSE Electricity at Work safe working practices. Unqualified/untrained persons should not be allowed to 'work' on electrical systems. You could argue by resetting the breaker they are 'working' on the system. Bad idea in my opinion, better to find out why they are tripping and reconfigure the installation accordingly.

60898 mcb’s are suitable for use as a functional switch
 
Have a look at the HSE Electricity at Work safe working practices. Unqualified/untrained persons should not be allowed to 'work' on electrical systems. You could argue by resetting the breaker they are 'working' on the system. Bad idea in my opinion, better to find out why they are tripping and reconfigure the installation accordingly.

60898 mcb’s are suitable for use as a functional switch
 

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