Drilling Into The Unknown: Safe Drilling Reminders
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How many times do we drill into a wall without knowing what’s inside?
Whether we are drilling into a wall to install some fixings or drilling from outside to inside to run some pipework, we should really make sure it's safe to do so. There could be anything located inside the wall that you can damage such as:
- Water supply pipework
- Gas supply pipework
- Sanitary drainage
- Electrical cables
- Internet cables or phone lines
- Air conditioning pipework
- Timber
- Steel
So, what techniques can we employ to minimise the risk?
- It is important to have a bit of awareness of your surroundings.
- It is probably not a good idea to drill vertically above, below, or beside a power point or light switch.
- We can’t always assume previous trades have installed works to the Industry Standard.
- The use of Stud finders will assist in this task. Most stud finders will locate timber, metal and even live electrical. These are a welcome addition to any tradie's tool kit.
Knowing that there is no live electrical in the wall is going to save you time, money in repair costs and hopefully save you from the chance of an electric shock. Most modern houses will have switchboard with circuit breakers. The residual current devices (RCD’s) in these boards will shut off the electric by breaking the circuit when it detects an imbalance of around 0.005 amps.
What does that mean? If you drill through a live cable and the power travels through your drill or your body, the circuit breaker will sense this change and in turn, close off. The outcome will hopefully be that there is little to no electric shock received by the drill operator.
In older properties without modern style switchboards, there is a greater risk of electric shock. Some older house may have ceramic fuses instead of circuit breakers. Ceramic fuses will only blow when it reaches a maximum capacity. Circuit breakers are much more sensitive and therefore will trip from much less of a discrepancy.
If you are unable to trace wires and detect live electricity, it would be good working practice to isolate the electricity while drilling into the wall.
As always, you should also protect yourself by using the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) for the task:
- Gloves
- Safety glasses
- Ear defenders
- Vacuum/dust extraction
- Dust mask
Make sure all your jobs are covered by safety procedures and SWMS. Have you tried MPAQ’s safety system? It is a free cloud-based work health and safety system that lets you create SWMS on the fly to identify hazards and put measures in place to minimise the risk to yourself and your workers.
For more information about MPAQ Safety, follow the link below or call the Technical Team on 07 3273 0800.
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