Hi Am looking to put in a system of changing office lights - out of hours; do members feel its unsfafe to change them whilst staff are on site.

As always this depends on the circumstances, which means someone would have to do a risk assessment. What you would need to look at is: 1. How accessible are the lights? Are they above traffic routes or desks or some sort of dead space or a stairwell or an atrium with 50 foot drop…etc? 2. How busy is the area? What sort of movements takes place: the occasional pedestrian or do you expect trolleys and other traffic through it continuously all day? 3. How easy is it to actually take out and replace the light fittings? Is it a 5 second job to take out one fitting and fit a replacement or do you have to remove ceiling panels and take out control units etc? 4. How many light fittings are you going to do 1 or 100? Will it take a few minutes or all day? 5. How much disruption would it causes if you just cordoned the whole area off and left the sparkies to it? The risk assessment will tell you what you need to do. So you might decide a bloke with his ladder is all that you need or you might have to set up work platforms and close the area off.

There are simple methods of safe isolation for light fittings that only require a minor captial investment at the design and installation stage, but will pay back dividends in future maintenance costs. Simply plugs and sockets that are suitable for disconnection and reconnection of simple lighting loads such as those found in offices live. That way you can send a man up a ladder, one hand to disconnect, light safely isolated and able to be worked on changed out, at this point, it might even pay to take the whole fitting down and replace it with a spare, and refurb the removed unit "on the floor" as it were, then use that to swap out the next light etc. Look for Ashley Click units, or Scolmore Click Flow connectors. Simple to fit, lifetime cost efficient, just a little more thought and understanding needed by the specifier, designer and installer. Would save huge on costs in maintenance, and offer huge increases in safety.

To be clear by lights you mean the fittings not just the bulbs ?

To be honest, it is not the best idea to change it with the staff on site. We recently upgraded our lighting with the help of http://www.interior-deluxe.com/ and they actually gave us the advice to hire specialists that do the work while the staff is not there. The other possibility would be to move the staff from the room that is currently worked on, but that might be very annoying. It might be worth the extra few dollars to find a day where your staff is not there.

Hi You could always ask the contractor what they usually do and then get their Risk Assessment and Methods Statement for it. Ian

devinp01 This may come as a surprise but: It has been suggested that you ask a contractor... Why don't you just call in an electrician who is experienced and qualified to do the work or are you trying to cut corners to keep the costs down? Chris42, you know better than to use the word 'bulbs' ;-)

If he/she (OP) was an experienced and qualified electrician the question would not have been asked. I can read. I am of course talking about an electrical contractor for crying out loud. What do you think I'm talking about a bricklayer ? :-)

No not at all. The post asked for advice about a safe system (of work I assume) for changing lights in an office and as to whether it would be unsafe to do this while staff were present. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that he is a self employed electrician who has been asked to submit a safe system of work (which deals with more than just electrical works) to undertake this task ? Maybe he just wanted to know what other matters he should consider.

Before you can put a safe system into place, have a chat to an electrician and find out what he/she needs to do (Job analysis) then start making the plan.

Every one to their own. If you read #19 I think it should take care of things. I don't lie Paul and I trust that you will retract that in due course.

I do however stand by #19