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NPORS Powered Hand Held Breaker Training (N048)
A hand held breaker is the tool that takes a slab up in ten minutes and takes a career in ten years. Vibration, silica dust, noise and whatever is buried under the concrete. A day on the breaker your gang actually uses, with the health risks treated as seriously as the obvious ones.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our N048 Powered Hand Held Breaker different
About this course
The NPORS N048 Powered Hand Held Breaker category covers the hydraulic, pneumatic, petrol and electric breakers used to break out concrete, tarmac, kerbs, slabs and masonry on groundworks, demolition, highways and utilities jobs. It covers the machine and the power source, the points and chisels, setting up and connecting safely, breaking technique, and the health and safety measures that go with a tool that vibrates, makes noise and generates a great deal of harmful dust.
The immediate hazards are familiar: the point that skids off hard material, the slab that drops, the trailing hose, the hot exhaust, and the buried service that nobody checked for. The ones that do most damage are slower. Hand arm vibration syndrome is permanent, it is caused by exactly this kind of tool, and it is entirely preventable with sensible trigger times and job rotation. Respirable crystalline silica, released whenever concrete, stone or mortar is broken, causes silicosis and lung cancer, and the controls are water suppression, on tool extraction and respiratory protection that fits the person wearing it.
A day covers the lot in a way that a gang will actually use. Pre use checks on the machine, hoses, couplings and the point. Connecting and disconnecting a hydraulic or pneumatic supply safely, including whip checks and the reason hoses are secured. Checking what is under the surface before breaking starts. Stance, grip, letting the tool do the work and not leaning on it. Water suppression or extraction set up and running rather than sitting in the van. Exclusion, flying debris and the people either side of the work. Then shutting down, isolating and leaving the equipment and the hole safe.
- Breaker types and power sources: hydraulic power packs, compressors, petrol and battery machines, and the hoses, couplings and controls that go with each
- Pre use checks of the machine, hoses, couplings, retaining devices and points, connecting and disconnecting safely with hose restraint and whip checks, isolating before a point is changed, and reporting a defect rather than working round it
- Checking for buried services and structural risk before breaking begins, and the limits of what should be broken out by hand
- Hand arm vibration: what it does, trigger time, job rotation, machine choice, health surveillance and reporting symptoms early
- Dust and respirable crystalline silica: water suppression, on tool extraction, respiratory protective equipment and face fit, and keeping dust out of the rest of the site
- Noise, flying debris, exclusion, manual handling of points and breakers, and duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, PUWER 1998 and COSHH
How completing this course helps you
- The NPORS N048 Powered Hand Held Breaker category, registered with NPORS and recognised nationally
- An NPORS Red Trained Operator card, or a Blue Competent Operator card where you hold the relevant NVQ, carrying the CSCS logo while your CITB Health, Safety and Environment test is in date
- Operators who set up water suppression or extraction before they start rather than when somebody asks
- A record of training and a starting point for the vibration and dust controls your health and safety file has to show
Who should attend?
Groundworks and civils gangs, demolition and refurbishment contractors, utilities and highways teams, drainage crews, rail and airport maintenance teams, plant hire staff who demonstrate equipment, and facilities and maintenance teams who break out concrete occasionally. It suits both the operative who uses a breaker every day and the general operative who picks one up a few times a month, which is often the person with no training at all.
Entry requirements. You should be at least eighteen, physically fit enough to handle and control a heavy vibrating tool and to lift points and breakers, and able to follow spoken and written English well enough for the theory test, though an interpreter or a reader can be arranged on request. No prior card is required. Because of the vibration and dust exposure that comes with this work, your employer should have health surveillance arrangements in place and should have face fit tested anybody who will wear tight fitting respiratory protection, and we will raise both at enquiry. For the version of the card that carries the CSCS logo you need a CITB Health, Safety and Environment test pass at Operatives level taken within the last two years, which we book for you.
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Course content
What you will cover
Classroom on the equipment, the health risks and the duties, then practical breaking with the machines and power sources your gang uses, with theory and practical testing at the end.
The tool, the health risks and the duties
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, PUWER 1998 and COSHH as they apply to breaking out
- Breaker types and power sources, and matching the machine and the point to the material
- Pre use checks, hose and coupling condition, retaining devices, and taking equipment out of service
- Connecting and isolating hydraulic and pneumatic supplies, hose restraint and whip checks
- Buried services and structural considerations before breaking begins
- Hand arm vibration: the mechanism, trigger time, rotation, tool selection, health surveillance and early reporting
- Respirable crystalline silica: where it comes from, water suppression, on tool extraction, RPE and face fit testing
- Noise, flying debris, exclusion, manual handling and site housekeeping around a breaking operation
On the breaker
- Pre use checks of the breaker, points, hoses, couplings and power source
- Setting up the power pack or compressor, connecting hoses and fitting hose restraints
- Fitting and changing points safely with the machine isolated
- Setting up water suppression or on tool extraction before breaking starts
- Breaking out concrete, tarmac or masonry with correct stance, grip and working position
- Working in a gang: exclusion, debris control and the person on the ground nearby
- Shutting down, isolating, disconnecting, cleaning down and leaving the work area safe
Method of assessment
How the N048 powered hand held breaker test works
NPORS assess the category by theory test and practical test. The practical uses your breakers and your power source, on material that behaves like the material you actually break.
1. Enquiry and group
Tell us how many people, where, and what breakers and power sources you run. Six sit the course with one instructor. We will also ask about your dust and vibration controls, because the practical uses them. We quote per group.
2. Pre course check
We work out who is new to the tool and who needs a refresher, check that respiratory protection and face fit arrangements are in place, agree whether you need the CSCS logo version of the card, book the CITB test where it applies, and take the details NPORS need.
3. Training
Classroom on the equipment, the health risks and the duties, then practical breaking. On your own site we use your machines, your hoses and your material.
4. Theory test
The NPORS theory test covering legislation, equipment and power sources, checks, buried services, vibration, dust control, noise and exclusion.
5. Practical test
You carry out the checks, connect and set up the equipment and its dust controls, break out safely with correct technique and shut down and isolate, assessed against the NPORS test specification.
6. Registration and card
We register the pass with NPORS and apply for your card, carrying the CSCS logo where you hold a current CITB Health, Safety and Environment test.
After the course
The damage arrives ten years late
Nobody has ever been sent home from a breaker job because of vibration or dust. That is the problem. Hand arm vibration syndrome and silica related lung disease develop quietly over years, and by the time somebody notices, nothing can be undone. The course gives operatives the facts and the practical measures, but the change has to be supported on site: trigger times that are actually tracked, the same person not put on the breaker every day, water or extraction used every time, and a supervisor who treats a missing RPE filter the same way they would treat a missing guard.
It is also worth planning the work rather than the tool. A great deal of hand breaking is done because it has always been done that way, when a machine mounted breaker, a saw cut or a different demolition sequence would take the operative out of the exposure altogether. That conversation is part of the day.
- N304 Cable Avoidance Tool so somebody in the gang can sweep before the point goes into the ground
- N017 Abrasive Wheels Hand Held Cut Off Saw for the saw cuts that reduce the amount of hand breaking
- N704 Manual Handling, since breakers, points and broken out material all have to be moved by somebody
- CITB Health, Safety and Environment test booked with us where the CSCS logo version of the card is needed
Build your course
Who is coming, and how many
We do not run these to a timetable. The course is built around your people: how experienced they are and how many of them there are, which is what sets the length and the cost. Pick the mix and we will come back with a date and a price.
The course builder needs JavaScript. Without it, tell us how many people and what experience they have and we will price it up.
N048 Powered Hand Held Breaker FAQs
The NPORS test sheet gives a one day novice duration with six candidates and one instructor, and the same maximum of six on a refresher. We confirm the length when we quote, because a group already using breakers daily needs less time than a group that has never held one.
Not on the NPORS test sheet we work from. The routes recorded for N048 are the novice course and the refresher, each with a maximum of six tests, and no experienced worker figure. We will not take a booking for a route that does not exist.
Yes, and the practical is built around what you actually run. Tell us at enquiry whether your gangs work off a hydraulic power pack, a compressor, petrol machines or battery machines, because the connection, isolation and checking differ between them.
What hand arm vibration syndrome is, what causes it, and the practical controls: trigger time rather than shift time, rotating the work round a gang, choosing lower vibration machines when kit is replaced, keeping points sharp so the tool is not being forced, and reporting tingling or numbness early while something can still be done.
Breaking concrete, stone and mortar releases respirable crystalline silica, which causes silicosis and lung cancer. The controls are water suppression, on tool extraction and properly fitted respiratory protection, and the course covers setting them up and using them rather than just naming them. Tight fitting masks need face fit testing, which your employer arranges.
Yes, and it is part of the course. A breaker point through a cable or a gas service is one of the worst outcomes on a groundworks job. Where gangs break out over services regularly, adding the N304 Cable Avoidance Tool category so somebody can sweep properly is money well spent.
Six, with one instructor, which is usually a whole gang. Running it on your own site means the group is only off the job for the day and the practical uses your own equipment.
An NPORS Red Trained Operator card, or a Blue Competent Operator card where the holder has the relevant NVQ. Either carries the CSCS logo while a CITB Health, Safety and Environment test pass is in date, which is what a principal contractor checks at the gate.
NPORS courses are priced per course, not per person. What you are paying for is the instructor, the registered tester and the machine time, so the figure turns on four things: the category, which route your operators need (novice, experienced, conversion or refresher), how many people are coming, and whether we run it on your site or at one of ours. It is also why a squad works out considerably cheaper per head than sending operators out one at a time. Use the course builder on this page: tell it who is coming and it works out how many days the course takes and how many times it has to run, which is what the price is built from. Then ask us and you will get a figure for that exact group rather than a list price with conditions attached.
We run NPORS courses across the UK rather than out of one fixed centre, and for most categories the better answer is that we come to you: your operators are assessed on the machine they will be using anyway, nobody loses a day travelling, and for a group it costs less. If you would rather come to us, we have centres at Trent House in Stoke, Pride Park in Derby, Europa House in Manchester and Kingsway House in Liverpool. Tell us where the work is and we will say honestly which way round makes more sense.
There is no fixed timetable to wait for. NPORS courses here are run to order, which means the dates are built around your programme rather than ours, and a single operator or a full squad can normally be booked in within a couple of weeks. If you have a card about to expire or a start date to hit, say so when you enquire and we will work to it.
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