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Electrical SOP and safety checklist templates

Twelve templates. Free to copy, no account. Last reviewed 2026-09-07.

Electrical work has the shortest distance between a skipped step and a funeral. It also has the most established procedures of any trade, which means there is less excuse for not writing yours down.

These twelve are written as field checklists rather than policy documents. A policy document sits in a binder. A checklist gets ticked on a phone in a switch room.

Take them, adjust them to your jurisdiction and your shop, and have a qualified person review them before you put them in front of a crew.

On this page
  1. Lockout and tagout
  2. Working near live parts
  3. Panel upgrade handover
  4. Service call diagnosis
  5. Standby generator install and commissioning
  6. EV charger installation
  7. Rough in self check before inspection
  8. Trenching and underground runs
  9. Ladder use around electrical service
  10. Apprentice supervision
  11. Incident and near miss report
  12. Customer handover

Keep the record, not just the paperwork

Copy any procedure on this page into your own documents at no cost. What Intulix sells is the part underneath: a signed, dated, version locked record of which technician read which version, exportable as a PDF when someone asks. Start free or see pricing from $59 a month.

The twelve procedures

Lockout and tagout

The one procedure where skipping a step ends a career.

  1. Identify every energy source, not just the obvious one.
  2. Notify everyone affected before isolating.
  3. Isolate, lock and tag with your own lock and your own name.
  4. Test the meter on a known live source, test the dead circuit, then test the meter again.
  5. Photograph the applied lock and tag.
  6. Only the person who applied a lock removes that lock.

Working near live parts

Sets the line between a job you take and a job you refuse.

  1. Establish the boundary and keep unqualified people outside it.
  2. Wear PPE rated for the incident energy on the equipment label.
  3. Never work alone inside the boundary.
  4. If the equipment is not labeled, stop and call the lead.
  5. Record the job, the equipment and who was present.

Panel upgrade handover

Callbacks come from labeling nobody verified.

  1. Label every breaker and verify each one by switching it.
  2. Photograph the finished panel with the labels readable.
  3. Confirm AFCI and GFCI devices trip and reset.
  4. Leave the permit and inspection paperwork with the customer.
  5. Show the customer the main disconnect before leaving.

Service call diagnosis

Guessing costs parts, time and credibility.

  1. Ask what changed immediately before the fault appeared.
  2. Check the simple causes before opening anything.
  3. Measure rather than assume. Record the readings.
  4. Explain the finding to the customer before quoting.
  5. Photograph the fault before repairing it.

Standby generator install and commissioning

A generator that fails on the one night it is needed is a reputation problem.

  1. Confirm the transfer switch rating against the load calculation.
  2. Verify the fuel supply and the run time at full load.
  3. Test transfer under load, not just simulated.
  4. Record the commissioning readings.
  5. Show the customer the manual transfer procedure and the maintenance interval.

EV charger installation

A fast growing job where the load calculation is the part most often skipped.

  1. Perform and record the service load calculation before quoting.
  2. Confirm the circuit rating against the charger specification.
  3. Verify the GFCI protection required by the installation.
  4. Test the charger under load before leaving.
  5. Register the unit and show the customer the app if there is one.

Rough in self check before inspection

A failed inspection costs a return trip and delays every trade behind you.

  1. Walk the whole rough in against the drawing before calling the inspector.
  2. Confirm box fill, staple spacing and protection plates.
  3. Confirm grounding and bonding at every point.
  4. Photograph anything that will be covered before it is covered.
  5. Fix everything you find before the inspector arrives, not after.

Trenching and underground runs

Hitting an existing service is expensive and occasionally fatal.

  1. Call for utility locates and record the ticket number.
  2. Confirm the marks on site before any machine touches the ground.
  3. Hand dig within the tolerance zone of a marked service.
  4. Photograph the open trench with depths visible before backfill.
  5. Record the as built route for the customer.

Ladder use around electrical service

A metal ladder near a service drop is a specific and preventable way to die.

  1. Use a non conductive ladder anywhere near a service drop.
  2. Set the base one foot out for every four feet of height.
  3. Tie off the top and foot the ladder.
  4. Look up and identify every conductor before raising anything.
  5. Photograph the setup before climbing.

Apprentice supervision

Defines what an apprentice may do alone, in writing, before someone assumes wrongly.

  1. Name the supervising qualified person for every shift.
  2. List the tasks an apprentice may perform unsupervised.
  3. List the tasks that require direct supervision without exception.
  4. Require the apprentice to stop and ask rather than guess.
  5. Record the supervision arrangement on the job ticket.

Incident and near miss report

A near miss you did not record is a near miss you will repeat.

  1. Make the area safe before anything else.
  2. Record what happened in plain language within the same shift.
  3. Photograph the scene and the equipment involved.
  4. Name everyone present and what each person saw.
  5. Review the related procedure within the week and update it if needed.

Customer handover

The last five minutes decide the review.

  1. Walk the customer through what was installed and where.
  2. Demonstrate any new device operating.
  3. Hand over the permit, the inspection record and any warranty.
  4. Take the after photographs with the customer present.
  5. Ask for the review before packing up.

How to make these yours

A template written by someone who has never seen your shop is a starting point and nothing more. Three things are worth changing before you hand any of these to a crew.

  1. Replace anything that names a tool, a brand or a supplier with what you actually use. A step that references equipment nobody has is a step that gets skipped, and one skipped step teaches the crew the rest are optional too.
  2. Cut anything that does not apply. A twelve step procedure with four irrelevant steps is worse than an eight step one, because the technician now has to decide which steps count.
  3. Add the local part. Permit rules, inspection sequence and utility procedures differ by jurisdiction, and that is exactly the part a generic template cannot supply.

What happens after you write them

Writing the procedure is the easy half. The half that matters in a dispute is proving a specific person read a specific version on a specific date, which a shared folder cannot do and a binder cannot do either.

That is the part Intulix handles. You send the procedure, the technician reads it on a phone and signs with a finger, and the record is locked against the exact version they saw. When you edit the procedure later, the old signatures stay attached to the old words instead of quietly transferring to text nobody agreed to.

Start free and send your first procedure

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