Leonard wrote:
1) the age and the outside condition of the switch and handle (rust, covered in dust, dirt, etc). How does the equipment present itself?
2) Have I been here before and operated the switch? Or perhaps aware of the history of installation?
3) Would the installation meet code rerquirements?
4) Am I aware of the maintenance history? How well has the equipment been maintaned over the years?
If you can answer favourably to at least 3 of the above questions then operating the switch with standing to one side and facing away with a pair of good leather gloves (hand and wrist protection) on and safety glasses would be adequate
First off, what does the relative dirtiness of the equipment have to do with performance at all unless it's say NEMA 1? Nothing. In fact in many industries (oil and gas, iron & steel, mining) dirty is normal, and the incident rates as a whole are not higher than any other industry. In fact at least in U.S. mining, the average injury incident rate is much lower than the general industry average.
Second most plants would have trouble answering these questions, except the first one. Answering questions about installation requirements requires deep inspections or data that simply doesn't exist or is hard to get to. Similarly maintenance data... are you kidding me? Do you actually expect a summary of work order history to be attached to each work order or piece of equipment? I know what you are getting at but we need to be more practical here. OSHA 1910.269 Annex E has a much better suggested list of conditions to look for. I would argue that if the list of inspections cannot be performed by a qualified electrician working on site by visual external inspection alone, it is not a very practical condition. This is why everyone is so afraid of the "normal work" clauses in Z462 and 70E...because they are so wishy washy and poorly written that they basically give no guidance at all.