Acceptance Testing

If you hire a mechanic to fix your car, how do you know if their work is acceptable? You check it out, right? You look it over carefully, you give it a test spin, you may look under the hood, and you may keep your eyes and ears open to make sure there aren’t any weird noises or dashboard lights.

So, how do our customers know if what Shaw Electric or IAS installs is acceptable? They check it out, or often, they hire someone that has the knowledge and expertise to check it out. Or, the customer might ask for testing results, which is where IAS comes in. Stephen Mahieu is IAS’s Field Service Supervisor, who performs acceptance testing to ensure the installation is done well.

Shaw Electric jobs are acceptance tested as a matter of good practice. Here’s some of what is expected by Bob Shaw on Shaw Electric jobs:

For services, test ground resistance and check grounding connections, check panel connections and bus work, and check for surge arrestor.

For cables, meggering, hi pot testing for high voltage cables, and visual examination.

For breakers, test trip units and check settings.

For high voltage transformers, test ground resistance, check connections, check for physical protection, and megger test.

For medium voltage gear, check connections and bus work, megger, and check terminations. Visually check the installation.

After systems are energized and loaded, check out the gear and connections with the thermal camera to check for hot spots.

Be sure to call IAS several weeks in advance when you need a new service or gear checked out. We’ll schedule a tech to check out your system, so you can show your customer that their installation is done right and it will work right.

Ken Deering
3/24/15