Installation, inspection and maintenance of electrical equipment in hazardous areas associated with combustible dust, on food production and processing sites.
South East Queensland and Northern NSW, from Tweed Heads through the Gold Coast, Yatala, Beenleigh and Logan to Brisbane.
Hazardous area work
Electrical work within a hazardous area that has already been classified by your site or a specialist.
Installation of explosion-protected equipment, associated apparatus and wiring systems within the classified area.
Maintenance of electrical equipment associated with hazardous areas, keeping installed equipment in the condition its protection depends on.
Visual and close inspection of hazardous area electrical installations, carried out and recorded against your existing inspection regime.
Detailed inspection of hazardous area electrical installations, including work where equipment may need to be opened and isolated.
Determining the explosion-protection requirements for an area that has already been classified, including selection of equipment suitable for the specified classification.
Planning hazardous area electrical installations within the site's existing classification and the applicable requirements.
Installation work is carried out to the applicable requirements of the AS/NZS 60079 series, with AS/NZS 60079.14 covering electrical installation selection and erection, and AS/NZS 60079.17 covering inspection and maintenance.
Where we work
Our practical hazardous-area experience is primarily in combustible-dust environments on food production sites. Areas associated with powder handling, production equipment and dust-producing processes, rather than gas or vapour environments.
Equipment installed years ago may no longer suit the current classification, ingress protection degrades, seals and glands deteriorate, and dust accumulation on enclosures affects the very thing the protection relies on.
Where equipment is protected by enclosure, its condition is its protection. That is what an inspection regime exists to pick up.
The dust zones we work to:
A combustible dust cloud is present continuously, or for long periods. Typically inside equipment rather than in the room around it.
A dust cloud is likely to occur in normal operation, often around transfer, handling or discharge points.
A dust cloud is not likely in normal operation, and if it occurs it is infrequent and short lived.
We work to the classification your site already holds. Determining the zones and their extent is a separate exercise that we do not carry out.
Competency
Hazardous area work is one of the few areas where a client's HSE team will want to know what a contractor holds before anyone goes through the gate.
Sparktech provides EEHA-qualified electrical support for hazardous areas associated with combustible dust on food production and processing sites. Our hazardous-area capability includes installation, maintenance, planning, and visual, close and detailed inspection of electrical installations within classified areas.
Personnel are assigned to hazardous-area work based on the competencies required for the task and site.
Competency evidence for the electricians attending your site can be supplied for your contractor records, prequalification or tender requirements on request.
Records
Hazardous area compliance lives in the records, and most sites already have a system for keeping them. We work within yours rather than introducing a format of our own.
If your register has drifted out of date, or inspections have been missed while the site got on with production, that is a conversation worth having before someone else raises it.
Scope
Hazardous area work is not somewhere to be vague about what a contractor does and does not do.
We do not carry out hazardous area classification. Determining zones and their extent is a separate exercise. We work to the classification supplied by your site or a specialist.
We do not prepare or sign hazardous area verification dossiers. We carry out installation, inspection and maintenance within our competencies, and complete or update your existing hazardous area documentation and records.
We do not repair or overhaul Ex equipment. Ex repair and overhaul is a separate regime with its own requirements.
Our current practical hazardous-area experience is focused on combustible-dust environments in food production. We do not present ourselves as a petrochemical, fuel, gas or mining hazardous area contractor.
We fault find and repair safety circuits, and install safety systems to a design supplied by you or your engineer. We do not design machine safety systems, perform safety validation, or issue safety system certification. We sign off our own electrical wiring.
Related
Planned electrical maintenance across the rest of the plant, alongside hazardous area inspection intervals.
Detailed inspection and hazardous area work scheduled into planned downtime.
Installation work on food production sites, including within classified areas.
Where we work
South East Queensland and Northern NSW, from Tweed Heads through the Gold Coast, Yatala, Beenleigh and Logan to Brisbane. Licensed in both states, so sites either side of the border are equally in scope.
Get in touch
Tell us what is classified, what the inspection regime is, and where it has got to. We will tell you honestly what sits inside our competencies and what does not.
0434 059 952Commercial and industrial sites only. We do not do domestic or residential work.