Many companies have a requirement that persons that could work on or near energized electrical equipment wear arc rated clothing / PPE every day as part of their job. (Sometimes referred to as “daily wear�)

Do you / your co-workers / employees wear arc rated clothing and PPE at all times on the job?

• Yes, we wear PPE at all times whether we are performing energized work or not
• No, we only wear PPE when it is required for a specific task
• No, we do not perform any tasks that require PPE
• Other - please describe

Standard daily wear for our qualified electrical workers is nonmelting, untreated natural fibers (HRC 0). When greater protection is required to perform specific tasks, arc-rated clothing and associated PPE is donned over the top of standard daily wear. Prior to having an arc flash program, all employees wore poly-cotton blend uniforms.

We are similar to A King. All qualified electrical workers have had arc flash training and wear natural fibers as a standard. Each has a PPE kit with 8 cal coverall, face shield, gloves etc. to get them to HRC2. On average our guys only work on anything above HRC 0 2-3 times per year. We are lucky that we can normally deenergize before working

Is the uniform long sleeve or short sleeve?

[font=Tahoma][color=#141414]Simple answer: only long sleeved uniforms are issued to electrical workers. [/color][/font]

However, in 2009 company policy changed to require all associates on the shop floor to wear cut resistant sleeves that cover the entire arm. This raised several questions...

First, can electrical workers wear these cut resistant sleeves? Our company provides 3 types of cut resistant sleeves; one of these sleeves is made of Kevlar and approved for electrical workers. When exposed to incident energy levels greater than 1.1 cal/cm2, the cut resistant sleeves are removed and arc resistant clothing is donned.

Second, do electrical workers still need to wear the long sleeved shirt in areas less than 1.1 cal/cm2 if their arms are already covered? Many associates choose to purchase company tee-shirts (cotton) in addition to issued uniforms, and it was decided that tee-shirts were now okay for electrical workers providing they are nonmelting, untreated natural fiber worn with the appropriate cut resistant sleeves covering the entire arm leaving no bare skin exposed.

I work as a production maintenance technician in a battery manufacturing plant. We wear 100% cotton uniforms. We are pretty much all cat 0. When we are in a cat 1 zone we don our stored PPE. Anything above cat 1 we defer to our facility maintenance technicians or contractors. Prior to our recently started arc flash program, all employees wore poly-cotton blend uniforms.

Is there a limited number of use before you should replace your arc rate clothing . I get conflicting answers some say after 100 washes . Another says when you start seeing rips or tears .

I have always seen it as a matter of rips, tears, contamination or thread bare/worn thin. I don't recall ever seeing a specific number of washings.

My arguement against wearing arc rated coveralls daily is:
How effective are they going to be if they are oil stained (from threading conduit), or covered in dirt, water and other contaminents? Everyone agrees, but no one does anything about it...

Yes, we do wear the arc rated clothes as it is strictly regulated to wear them in my industry whether you are performing a specific task or not. We have an area where it's absolutely compulsory to wear such standard clothing. And the clothes regulated to us are full sleeved in length. And nevertheless, wearing a half sleeved protection is not beneficial due to the direct skin exposure in case of any mishap.

Most sites I work at require a base level of PPE to get on the property, partial HRC 1 or HRC 2 rated. Face masks and specific higher rated PPE is put on only for those tasks exceeding this. It used to be convenient when NFPA 70E did not require face masks for HRC 1, as by setting instantaneous protection low, were were able to calculate that most jobs could be accomplished with the base level PPE. Not anymore.

All of our mechanics are issued 100% cotton pants and shirts. Anyone electrically qualified is required to wear long sleeve FR rated shop coats and PPE (faceshield and gloves) prior to opening any cabinets.

Our Controls Techs / Electricians all wear 11Cal long sleeve shirts and pants as a standard daily wear uniform. That way all we need to add the arc flash faceshield and gloves to open cabinets for access and troubleshooting.

"Shop coats" (aka switching jackets/smocks) have been eliminated from most PPE systems. In practice the arc blast tends to blow up underneath the coat leaving the wearer completely exposed.

My site is a Cat 0 and as such cotton clothing is worn. Would other than cotton clothing be allowed to be worn underneath the cotton outer clothing?

Thanks

It's not specified but anything that can melt is the issue because even if the arc flash itself is minor, the resulting injury could be much worse. There are many cases where the arc flash itself is relatively harmless but the melting/burning of garments makes it much worse. Most synthetic fibers soften or melt around 150-160 C which is very low compared to not melting and a minimum combustion temperature of well over 300 C for cotton. Thus the reason that "H/RC 0" specifies nonmelting clothing no matter what the layer. So leave your spandex (and with the cold weather coming on) polypropylene underwear at home.

In case you're looking for an article to reference... (There's also some other related info in these sections.)

2012 NFPA-70E 130.7(C)(9)(c) Underlayers. Meltable fibers such as acetate, nylon, polyester, polypropylene and spandex shall not be permitted in underlayers (underwear) next to the skin. Exception: An incidental amount of elastic used on nonmetling fabric underwear or socks shall be permitted.

130.7(C)(11) Clothing consisting of fabrics, zipper tapes and findings made from flammable synthetic materials that can melt at temperatures below 315*C (600*F), such as acetate, acrylic, nylon, polyester, polypyethylene, polypropylene and spandex, either alone or in blends, shall not be used.

It's not too difficult to find under garments that meet this standard for men; women's apparel is slightly more difficult, but available.