Managing Your Team’s Compliance with Amendment 2 of the Wiring Regulations

Managing Your Team’s Compliance with Amendment 2 of the Wiring Regulations

If you work in the electrical sector, you will know all about the latest amendment to the 18th edition wiring regulations (BS7671). While some of the amends are relatively minor there are also some quite significant changes, so how do you ensure that all of your team will be compliant?

This blog suggests some practical ways that you can manage such crucial changes through using field service management software and developing compliance forms for your team. Even if you are not in the electrical sector compliance is critical – so having readily accessible forms that prompt and help report on completion of the project will help keep your business legal.

What are the Changes to Wiring Regulations?

It’s fair to say that the pace of technological change has accelerated over the last few years in the electrical industry and most of the Amendment 2 changes reflect this to improve electrical safety and also to cover new requirements such as the increasing demand for electric vehicle charging and photovoltaic installations. After all, both the public and organisations are keen to reduce their carbon footprint as climate change becomes a major concern.

While the new requirements were published on March 28th your team can implement the changes from now on or choose to comply with the previous version until September 27th after which all electrical installations must comply – even those that were designed before this date.

It means that you have six months to ensure that your team is up to speed and put the processes in place to ensure compliance.

The actual changes to the regulations are in some cases significant and potentially complex.

Some of the major ones include:

  • A new requirement for Arc Fault Detection Devices (AFDDs) in some AC final circuits for installations in some types of higher risk residential buildings;
  • The requirement for the fire safety design of buildings to be documented where specific conditions of external influence exist, such as protected escape routes and locations with risk of fire;
  • Method for determining the requirement to provide overvoltage protection;
  • Changes to identification, labels and notices, such as for consumer units, affecting how safety information is provided to the user of the electrical installation;
  • Changes in requirements for RCDs;
  • Expanded requirements for photovoltaic supply systems;
  • A chapter on Prosumer’s Low Voltage Electrical Installations, in a new part, Part 8.

Clearly you will need to get copies of the new Amendment 2 of the 18th edition and it would be sensible for your team to complete training on what it means for their installations. A good place to start is with the IET themselves who set the regulations, but as you would expect there are any number of training providers offering courses – a quick search on Google reveals a huge number of choices.

But taking your team off the road is expensive, not to mention the cost of putting them all through a training course. Plus of course when they are on site, they will generally not be carrying around a copy of the latest wiring regulations – and even if they were they are hardly written in plain English!

Using Field Management Software to Ensure Compliance with BS7671 Amendment 2

Mobile phone displaying Joblogic's mobile app with job visit actions

Also, the chances are that your business will be involved in specific areas of electrical installation or maintenance so your needs will vary.

While your team might be up to date with the regulations, they need to be aware of all of the implications when they are out in the field. Some of the regulations also involve a degree of assessment that needs to be recorded in case they are challenged in the future.

This is where linking the information and new processes that you establish for your business to ensure compliance and then making it easy for practical application in the field is vital.

Yet the burden for your team to demonstrate proof of work and compliance can be huge and involve a lot of paperwork to demonstrate for example due diligence on the selection of devices to ensure electrical safety – particularly when they need to complete a risk assessment.

This is where modern technology can make a real difference, after all the one thing that everyone has in their pockets nowadays are smart phones.

Using field service management software allows you to customise forms and checklists that are available on an engineer’s phone or tablet to act as an aide memoire and ensure that your team follows the correct procedures. It also allows the engineer to easily collect data, document it and send it back to the office to cut down on or eliminate paperwork.

What if there is no internet connection? No problem this does not affect their ability to complete the form.

Another advantage of using field service management software is that the engineer will have access to information about the job in advance and will have a full brief about its requirements. This allows them to plan and prepare what they need – both to be efficient and also to ensure that they are compliant.

At Joblogic we work with field service maintenance teams to help make them more efficient by using technology that is already available to them. We can help you streamline your business and ensure that as legislation and standards change that you remain compliant – whatever area of building services you work in.

Our mobile forms software enables you to simplify compliance by streamlining data collection between an engineer’s mobile app and the back-office system. Find out how it could help your business meet its requirements here.

Try Joblogic Electrician Software for all Your Field Service Needs

Joblogic provides industry-leading software for electrical maintenance providers, in a wide range of subindustries that includes:

Why not book a free demo today to find out just how much we can help your business?

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