Hi everyone!
Does anyone know of any good courses which teach electrical safety basics? Something that a person who is interested in getting into repair but is a complete beginner would benefit from going on. The course isn’t for me but I’m researching what is out there.
The course could be online or in person (ideally in London).
Thanks in advance 
This info should all be in the Wiki, but we don’t have a page specifically on electrical safety. It’s on my to-do list (as of 5 minutes ago!)
Thanks Philip the wiki page is super useful!
We’re looking for an ‘official’ course to provide an element of accreditation and assessment on top of the learning that people can show an employer.
OK, yes, I understand. Something at the level of an accredited first aider training course. Hmmm… There are £30 PAT testing courses that give you a certificate after 10 can’t-fail multiple choice questions, and (from a quick search) there are 18 day C&G courses on domestic electrics from around £2,000, but whether there’s anything in between…
There are one or two sound engineers round here whose training must have included an electrical safety element, though probably only as one module in a much more extensive course.
Rather heavy on electrical installation, whereas what a fixer needs should be focused more on what plugs into theelectrical installation, than the electrical installaction itself. This one has a similar focus but not quite so heavy on the installation side. But if ou want something with an assessment and certificate at the end, these may not fit the bill.
In my day, 1960s, safety instruction for working on gear which used kV power supplies was to keep one hand in your pocket but I don’t think we got a certificate for it. Failing a course, just use your common sense and use a power socket with an RCD.
David.
This webpage is very clean, clear and easy to read to start with. I feel it’s very beginner friendly.
Well, there’s Basic Electrics from our friends at the Goodlife Centre.
It’s all about domestic electrics but it covers safety as well IIRC.
There’s no accreditation, assessment or certification though.
That looks very good, though again, concetrating on what’s behind the wall socket rather than what’s plugged into it. Is the trainer a C&E certified eectrician?
This is a question we are asking in Tunbridge Wells as we have a finite number of electrical repairers and we need more. What we are starting to do is gather the thoughts from our existing electrical repairers as to the skills they think electrical repairers need.
We hope to be able to then formulate a checklist. After that it would be letting those keen to learn to shadow our repairers until all the skills we have listed have been seen and then ‘learnt’. None of this is about certifying anyone but more so a way to start looking at what we’d desire in a repairer and help them progress towards being a competent repairer.
as an electrician who has attended several events as a fixer, I think the skills you are looking for don’t quite fall under electrical nor quite under electronic - more of a mix. For example I’m quite happy fixing a plug in lamp or an iron, but give me anything with a circuit board and that’s another thing. Also my tools are not designed for small appliances! However, I’ve found other fixers very happy to share skills, knowledge and tools. I wonder if creating some sort of training pack using the knowledge we have amongst us would be better and could be better tailored. I have given basic electric training - but it covered things like changing a fuse, how circuit breakers/RCD’s operate etc - so not really what we’re about.
Oh okay this looks great, thanks Dave!
This is a really great idea Chris, maybe you could ask the question on this platform too? Might get some different responses
Would be great to hear what’s on your checklist so far too out of interest!
Yep your right pulling everyone’s skills together to create a hybrid training pack seems like the best way forward…
Thanks for the feedback Donna
There’s a page in the Wiki on the Absolute Basics, with a section which outlines the essentials you need to know and understand for work on mains electrical devices.
Perhaps this could form the basis of an Electrical Safety curriculam. What else needs to be added?
Once we’ve established what needs to be covered, we can create a Wiki page for self-learning. There are plenty of other pages in the Wiki containing basic theory, that this could reference, such as Electrical Circuits, Volts, Amps Watts and Ohms, AC and DC, Series and Parallel Circuits.
I asked something similar a year or so back and have still not been able to find anything other than stuff for the building trade, PAT training and sharing skills with those that already have them. There appears to be a massive gap in training and education for the next generation when it comes to repairing electronics etc…I’m wondering if any other European countries have something with a course programme that we could chat to local education establishments about copying and offering to test the water? (Still on my very long list of things to do 
Hello, I just wanted to re-spark this thread to see if anyone has found courses with certification on electrical safety. I found a really great one with an organisation called Tinson Training who run a Electrical Safety Awareness course and provide certification but they can’t run the course on the dates we need.
Does anyone know of any others? The certification aspect is essential, any advice is much appreciated 