Welcome to Plug in 2 engineering

Transcript

On the network journey, the job of a Jointer - one of the most important roles - is the connection of new suppliers such as houses, shops and businesses.

A Jointer connects cables from 230 to 11,000 volts, either as part of a new program or whether there has been a fault on a cable and it has to be repaired to get people back on supply. You can find a Jointer anywhere where there is electricity.

I'm now in my fourth year as a jointing apprentice and I decided to choose jointing as my occupation as you're never in the same place, you're always outdoors and that's what I prefer, the fact that every day is different. It takes four years to finish the jointing apprenticeship and in that time you'll get an NVQ, and a City and Guilds in electrical distribution. Some of the skills that are required to be a Jointer are manual dexterity, an ability to learn and also to be able to work in any weather condition. You have to be a good team member and be able to work as a part of a team, as we have to work in three crew teams. Science and maths are particularly important when it comes to the more theoretical side, such as the City and Guilds, here the maths and science that I learnt at GCSE and also at a level, they are really coming into play and they certainly help. Heath and safety plays a main part in this job, as working with electricity is often quite dangerous. We use personal protective equipment, such as gloves, flame retardant clothing to protect ourselves from any damage that may occur, but the idea is to prevent this in the first place, we use risk assessment to identify hazards, signs and guarding and barriers to protect the public, and generally just talking to each other, letting everyone else be aware of the risks.

Jointing is mainly carried out under two conditions which are; fault conditions, where there are people off supply, and planned conditions when new equipment is being put in or old equipment is being replaced; this then consists of stripping down the old cables - or the new cables - and then preparing them to join, this may be live in which case the correct personal protective equipment and quite big rubber gloves are worn to prevent electric shock and then they're joined.

Some of the tools we use are dependant on task, for example, we have a spike gun, which fires a bullet like cartridge through a cable which spikes it and that proves that it's dead. This is used on HV systems, where you wouldn't want to take a hack saw to a cable without fully knowing whether it's live or not. We also use gas torches which fire gas which is then ignited to form a hot flame which then shrinks down heat shrink equipment that we use, and also we use a nut gun or a torque wrench as it's known, which is a high powered socket drill which shears off all the connectors.

Through being a Jointer I have learnt more about time management, how to manage my own time and the time of everybody else in the team and also how to work more under pressure because often we are dealing with people who have lost supply and we're having to put them back on. I also feel like I've become more of a team member because I'm working with people everyday be they customers, managers or just the people that I work with on a regular basis.

Everyday I come to work I feel that I have learnt something new, there are that many different places in which we work and the great variety of tasks in which we do, there's always a new way of overcoming the obstacles that face you everyday. One of the main challenges is the weather and how you deal with it, whether it be an umbrella for the rain, or another umbrella to keep the sun off your head. But it's very good, I thoroughly enjoy it.