ELECTRICAL MAINTENANCE SKILLS (BUILDING SERVICES)

COURSE 140: 12 DAYS

This course is designed to provide the skills necessary to carry out first-line maintenance on electrical installations in hospitals, universities, office blocks, etc. It will enable maintenance or estates personnel to deal safely with a wide range of tasks on circuits and equipment of the sort normally associated with lighting, small power and heating systems. Importantly, when supported by suitable on-site consolidation of training provision of this course will assist estates managers in meeting the legal requirements for employee competency in electrical work.

PARTICIPANTS

This page shows a description of the Electrical Building Services course - please scroll down the page to read more

No prior electrical knowledge is required in order to benefit from this course. It is suitable for all non-electrical personnel in maintenance and estates departments.

COURSE PRESENTATION

The emphasis is very much on ‘learning by doing’ and the development of useful, practical skills – with particular stress being placed upon safety. Comprehensive course notes are provided.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

On completion of the course, participants will be able to

practice safe working methods on electrical installations
understand the relevant regulative requirements
demonstrate an understanding of electrical principles and units
understand the equipment, circuits and devices typically found in installations, and their principles of operation
perform isolation, testing for dead, etc in a safe and secure manner
correctly remove and replace faulty electrical devices
understand the principles of earthing / protection and associated protective devices
safely reset overloads, replace fuses, etc
correctly terminate a range of cable types
understand different motor types, their connections and typical faults
use electrical test equipment to diagnose problems on circuits, motors and other devices
read circuit diagrams and use them as an aid to fault-finding.

Successful completion of the course leads to the award of Unite / Technical Training Solutions competence certificate 140: Electrical Maintenance Skills (Building Services).

The Consolidation Scheme allows candidates to practice their new skills at work, generating all the necessary evidence for their competence
This course is particularly suitable for our on-site consolidation scheme, which enables candidates to practice their newly acquired skills in the workplace. For more information on the scheme, please contact us. Contact us for more information on how the Electrical Building Services training course leads to competence in the Maintenance of Electrical Building Services

What do candidates on the Electrical Building Services course actually do?

During Week 1 of the course, candidates learn about basic electrical principles. This grounding in the fundamental concepts ensures a full understanding of the technical and safety issues in the later stages of the course.

Candidates learn in a practical way about ohm's law, series and parallel circuits etc, seeing at first hand what the relationships are between voltage, current and resistance. The following are some example of the course notes for this part of the course, describing ohm's law, series and parallel circuits and solenoids, relays and contactors:

This is page 12 of Part 1 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing ohm's law This is page 20 of Part 1 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing series and parallel circuits this is page 26 of Part 1 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing solenoids and relays

We ensure that this part of the course is kept interesting and relevant to the objectives of the course by avoiding any unnecessary theory and introducing some commonly-used industrial components, whilst using multimeters to make measurements, exploring the basic electrical principles as they go. To achieve this we have constructed exercise boards with industrial switches, sensors, relays, contactors etc so that they can build circuits, make measurements using digital multimeters, gain familiarity with the components and learn about the principles in a structured, interesting and enjoyable way.

Our custom-designed basic circuits rig allows candidates to build basic electrical circuits and learn about electrical principles whilst familiarising themselves with the basic electrical components in week 1 of the electrical building services training course

In the first week of the electrical building services course candidates also study the common industrial electrical components that they are likely to encounter - proximity detectors, relays, thermocouples, Pt100s and others. More complex circuits incorporating these components are constructed on the basic circuits board shown above. They also have an in-depth briefing of the effects of electric shock - a key issue on this course, as we need to be confident that they are aware of the potential dangers. The following are example pages from this part of the course notes for the electrical building services course, describing proximity detectors, relays and the effects of electric shock:

This is page 39 of part 1 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing proximity detectors This is page 43 of part 1 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing relays This is page 50 of part 1 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing the effects of electric shock

In Week 2 of the electrical building services course the candidates build on the fundamentals by learning about electrical dangers and protection methods; the principles of earthing, how the effects of electric shock are reduced, fuses, circuit breakers, RCDs and other related issues. They also learn about the Electricity at Work (EAW) Regulations and how these might affect their future work - exploring issues like live-working, competency, etc. The following are example pages from this part of the course notes for the electrical building services course, describing how insulation resistance testers should be used, how electrical systems should be isolated (getting the candidates to think through the various stages necessary) and an excerpt from the fault-finding part of the course, where we teach the candidates how to go about finding common faults like open circuits, short circuits and earth faults in industrial electrical circuits:

This is page 22 of part 2 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing insulation and continuity testing This is page 36 of part 2 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing isolation procedures This is page 44 of part 2 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing fault-finding methods

We teach the candidates the right way to prepare and terminate cables into plugs and sockets and how to use professional crimp tools to crimp conductors properly.

Candidates also learn why and how insulation and continuity testers are used, for which we have developed simulation units so that once they are able to use the testers properly to check cables, accessories and current-using equipment, they then apply their skills to finding open circuits, short circuits and insulation breakdowns within specially constructed test circuits. This allows them to gain some basic electrical faultfinding skills, developing their skills and understanding of the fundamentals further.

We also explain the effects of overload, short circuit and earth faults in electrical systems, showing how the various protective devices like fuses, circuit breakers and RCDs operate. We have a specially-constructed training rig for this also, so that candidates can explore these important issues.

The following are examples of the fault-finding training rigs (where candidates diagnose faults in the control and load circuits of industrial electrical circuits), the tools that the candidates use on the electrical building services course for terminating cables, the training rig used for exploring the effects of short circuits, overloads and earth faults, the rig used for the cable termination exercise, one of the insulation resistance testers used and examples of some of the leads that candidates build on the course:

The faultfinding test board used on the electrical building services training course We provide the candidates with all the necessary tools during the electrical building services training course The electrical fault board used on the electrical building services training course - this is used to explain what happens when short circuits, earth faults and overloads occur

This is the cable termination rig used on the electrical building services training course We use professional insulation resistance / continuity testers on the electrical building services training course Examples of some of the leads that candidates construct on the electrical building services training course

We then teach the candidates about three-phase motors: how they work, identification features, terminal configuration, testing, etc, whilst using their knowledge of voltage, current and resistance to understand the principles of induction.

This is page 65 of part 2 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing the key features of cage induction motors This is page 69 of part 2 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing the information found on the nameplates of industrial motors This is page 73 of part 2 of the electrical building services training course notes, describing the configuration of the terminals of a delta-linked motor

One of the boards used on the practical isolation exercises in the Electrical Building Services course

Week 3 is where candidates apply their acquired underpinning knowledge of voltage, current, resistance, power measurement and insulation testing to equipment associated with building maintenance. The assessment method during this phase of the course is based on the practical abilities of the candidates to meet the course objectives. We begin with the fundamental safety issue of safe isolation and the candidates practice on single phase and three phase demonstration boards, using various types of locking-off devices and exploring the various scenarios in which these would be used.

This is one of the practical exercises on the Electrical Building Services course - isolation using mcb clasps

Domestic and commercial lighting systems are explained along with the safe handling and the correct disposal method of a range of lamps. Candidates learn about the identification and maintenance of two-plate and three plate lighting circuits. The following are some pages from the candidates' course notes for this part of the course.

This is page 79 of week 3 of the course notes for the Electrical Building Services course, showing how ring circuits and radial circuits are wired This is page 81 of week 3 of the course notes for the Electrical Building Services course, describing how 2 plate and 3 plate one way and two way lighting circuits are wired This is page 88 of week 3 of the course notes for the Electrical Building Services course, describing how fluorescent lamps operate

Once the correct method of isolating and testing for dead is understood the candidates remove and replace socket outlets, light fittings and switches and demonstrate an understanding of how to locate faults and add intermediate switches.

This is one of the practical exercises on the Electrical Building Services course - boards carrying a combination of lighting circuits wired in 2 plate or 3 plate format where they can explore the various systems, add and remove components etc

Faultfinding continues with plenty of hands-on training using various three phase motor control rigs. Candidates learn how to interpret motor ratings plates and produce diagrams of direct-on-line (DOL) starters, reversing starters and inching starters by safely investigating the typical industrial motor configurations. These starters are wired to BS7671 and contain overload units, contactors and circuit breakers.

This is one of the practical exercises on the Electrical Building Services course - a DOL starter in which the candidates trace the circuit to understand how it functions and what its failure modes might be

Finally, a written assessment is administered to ensure that the candidates have understood all the important issues in the course and then a practical isolation exercise is undertaken, where the candidates show us that they really can perform the isolation of three phase systems correctly. The following are extracts from the course notes which help us to explain these important issues and also an example of the voltage testers and proving units that we use.

This is page 113 of week 3 of the course notes for the Electrical Building Services course, showing the necessary steps which should be considered within an isolation procedure This is page 115 of week 3 of the course notes for the Electrical Building Services course, detailing some of our recommended isolation procedures

If you would like to see some of the equipment used on the Electrical Building Services course for yourself, then please call us to arrange a visit to our offices in Kent. Alternatively, we can visit you anywhere in the British Isles.