Plan · Permit · Prove · Walk away if it isn’t safe
Safe Isolation Starts Before You Touch the Board
The hardest part of safe isolation is not always the tester. Sometimes it is the customer asking, ‘How long will you be?’ The manager saying, ‘Can we keep that bit live?’ The lost day’s pay if you walk away.
This site is a practical learning hub for planning, communicating and carrying out safe electrical isolation in the real world.
Explore the 10-point check. Learn the language. Practise the scenarios. Share the near misses.
The real job starts before the tools come out
Safe isolation begins at booking — permission, expectations and authority — not when you arrive with a tester. These are the boxes that must be ticked before a single cover comes off.
- Permission granted. The person in charge of the premises has agreed to the supply being switched off.
- Expectations set. Everyone affected knows roughly how long, and what stays off.
- Authority to isolate.You — not the customer — control the point of isolation.
- A clear walk-away.An agreed answer for when the conditions for safe work aren’t there.
Real-world pressure interrupts the procedure
Customer
Can I just finish this meeting?
Site manager
How long will this take?
Tenant
The freezer is full.
Business owner
We can’t shut down card payments.
Engineer
I’ve driven four hours to get here.
Every technical step happens inside a human situation. Pressure changes decisions.
Prove dead. Stamp every test.
The full three-phase sequence, in order, against an approved test instrument. Each line is signed off only when it reads dead.
Form SI / 10
Proving Dead — Test Schedule
0 / 10 verified
- 01L1 – L2pending
- 02L1 – L3pending
- 03L2 – L3pending
- 04L1 – Earthpending
- 05L2 – Earthpending
- 06L3 – Earthpending
- 07L1 – Neutralpending
- 08L2 – Neutralpending
- 09L3 – Neutralpending
- 10Neutral – Earthpending
These ten tests sit inside the wider procedure — plan, permit, identify, isolate, lock off, prove, test, re-prove. The ten checks are not the whole job.
A refused isolation is a safety signal, not just a scheduling problem.
If the worker loses money every time they choose safety, the system is quietly rewarding risk.
Submit a near missThe safest electrician is not the one who can work around every obstacle. It is the one who sees the pressure coming early enough to control it.