Blog

Prior to the Independence Day recess, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions unanimously approved via voice vote a bill reauthorizing the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act...
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Yesterday, IEC participated in the first event of the bipartisan Apprenticeship Caucus on Capitol Hill...
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Electrical safety continues to dominate industry conversations as professionals across the country seek opportunities to improve their understanding of current safety trends and brush up on best practices for ensuring safety in both the products they purchase and their installation...
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The Independent Electrical Contractors Foundation recently awarded grants to support the future growth and training of electrical apprentices...
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The single-line diagram (SLD) is an essential tool for the electrical professional that all too often gets overlooked at the end of the project. Budgets get spent on many things and it may be easy for someone, who doesn’t understand the importance of this document for electrical safety, to put off updating the single-line diagrams. This could be an opportunity for the electrical contractor to own and maintain this valuable resource. The challenge is conveying the value proposition to the right people to ensure the money is in the budget to fund the maintenance of this document. Let’s take time here to help build the safety case for supporting the single-line diagram.
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Since the 1960s, receptacles and circuit breakers with GFCI technology have become standard in homes to protect occupants from electric shock. Required by the NEC for outlets located in certain wet or damp locations, such as near bathroom sinks, kitchen countertops, bathtubs, and showers, GFCI receptacles monitor variations in the electrical current flowing through the line. In instances where a person accidentally becomes part of an electrical circuit, a GFCI receptacle would immediately trip, preventing electrical current from going through a person on its way to ground. It’s a technology that can save lives.
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Money is tight in our industry. Businesses are working to perform the job faster and more competitive to win bids and grow revenue. May is National Electrical Safety Month — a good time to direct attention to the most important asset in your company, the people. Safety discussions should include ergonomics and the seven ways that ergonomics may impact your staff every day.
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After last year’s bout of hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, heat waves, and cold spells across the country, product resiliency is key for contractors and engineers in 2018 as they rebuild and renovate destructed areas to withstand these natural disasters. To keep facilities up and running through extreme weather situations, it is vital for industry workers to understand the environment they are building in to better utilize appropriate cables and conduits for safe construction. Whether renovating or rebuilding from ground up, the proper installation of cables and selecting conduits with appropriate insulation and jacketing should be the primary focus during redevelopment. While some damage is non-preventable, a large portion of issues and safety hazards can be avoided through proper cabling solutions suited for different environments. Let’s take a look at the dos and don’ts of potentially dangerous jobsite conditions, including wet environments, fire hazard areas, and extreme temperatures.
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Walk down the aisles of Home Depot, or another major power tool distributor, and you’ll probably see the word “ergonomic” claimed as a feature on the packaging of many tools. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a tool on store shelves that doesn’t promote some sort of ergonomic benefit. But what does that word really mean to contractors and the companies they work for? What’s the difference between a claim of ergonomics and actual, proven muscle effort reductions?
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Each year, arc faults are responsible for more than 28,000 home fires, injuring or killing hundreds of people and causing more than $700 million in property damage1. Yet, arc fault circuit protection is still only mandated for 70 percent of a home’s electrical circuits. To get closer to 100 percent protection, consumers need to demand it, and electrical contractors need to get on board.
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