1910.269 requires arc flash protection for hands with exceptions when wearing leather protectors over rubber gloves, and when wearing heavy duty work gloves. The workers state that sticks should be used bare handed, and that work gloves will contaminate the stick. Any advice on this topic?
Leather gloves aren’t going to contaminate a hot stick unless for instance they get saturated in creosote or other materials. Granted there are tons of nasty, sticky materials in the utility work site and if the gloves get soaked with the more flammable ones, their “fire retardant” properties disappear.
It has been shown that up to 12 cal/cm2, leather gloves are sufficient.
You can’t use gloves realistically at high voltage and above (as per IEEE 516) because the voltage across the gloves might exceed their ratings. Since it is so hard to find class 3 or 4 gloves I kind of disagree with the current version of IEEE 516 cutting off the “no gloves” limit at 40 kV and I think it is more realistic to do this above 15 kV.
Finally with the hot stick method the intent is that some current flows through the worker’s body. Wearing gloves with hot sticks interferes with this. You are basically mixing work methods, the insulated tool method and the rubber glove method. READ MORE
