If you’re in charge of maintenance in an educational establishment, you have a challenging job. Your priority is to make sure all staff and pupils are safe, yet there is only a limited amount of time each year to allow tradespeople access to classrooms and common areas. School regulations are governed by the following acts; the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. In general, a school should have an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) carried out 5 years, however if any of the buildings are open to the public, for example if the school hall is hired out to community groups, electrical safety checking may need to be carried out more frequently. Emergency Lighting should be tested on a monthly basis and a full load test should be carried out annually in accordance with BS EN 50172:2004 / BS 5266-8:2004.
We understand the need to balance safety with practicality. We sit down with managers to make sure all your regular electrical & emergency lighting checks are done at a time causing the least disturbance during school holidays or out of school hours. We keep accurate records of every check, to provide you with your required audit trail and we’ll advise you as to the frequency of the electrical checks you need to be legally compliant. If you already have an electrician carrying out maintenance work, we’ll come and do an independent check to make sure the entire installation is safe and conforms to the correct standards.
Many of our schools have a variety of buildings, often built at different times. As building regulations change over time, this means that some buildings will need more frequent checks than others, or different remedial work to bring everything up to the latest electrical safety standards. Black Pear Electrical are experienced in dealing with all these different challenges, as we’ve worked with The King’s School Worcester for several years. At King’s many of the buildings are historic monuments and some are subject to Historic England Preservations orders. Here at Black Pear we make sure we’re aware of any additional requirements of the work due to your individual site environment.
Whilst we’re carrying your maintenance, if we find anything that could develop into a fault, we’ll notify you immediately so that remedial work can be done as quickly as possible and causing as little impact as possible on staff and pupils.
You can read more about our work for The King’s School and The Aspire Academy
If you are a school Head, Business Manager, Site Manager or Governor and you’d like to talk to us about your school electrical safety, contact our team on 01905 700490 or email us here
